Antes do adeus

"Antes do adeus"
Eurovision Song Contest 1997 entry
Country	Portugal
Artist(s)	Célia Lawson
Language	Portuguese
Composer(s)	Thilo Krassman, Rosa Lobato de Faria
Lyricist(s)	Rosa Maria de Bettencourt Rodrigues Lobato de Faria
Conductor	Thilo Krassman
Finals performance
Final result	24th
Final points	0
Appearance chronology
◄ "O meu coração não tem cor" (1996)
"Se eu te pudesse abraçar" (1998) ►

"Antes do adeus" ("Before goodbye") was the Portuguese entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1997, performed in Portuguese by Célia Lawson.

The song is a ballad, with Lawson recounting the events leading to the end of a relationship. She sings that her lover gradually moved away from her and returned things which they had held dear. From her perspective, the world changed markedly, with "the blue of the sky" ceasing to be as blue as it was. The song ends with the line "After the goodbye, deep sadness", by which point the lyrics have caught up with the end of the relationship itself.

The song was performed fifteenth on the night, after Bosnia and Herzegovina's "Goodbye", sung by Alma Čardžić, and before Sweden's Blond with "Bara hon älskar mig". By the close of voting, it had received no votes, placing it 24th – equal last – in a field of 25. This was to be Portugal's worst result at any time since the Carnation Revolution. Despite this, the song has since been acknowledged to have been one of those least deserving of "nul points" in the history of the contest, coming second in a recent poll of such entries.^[1]

It was succeeded as Portuguese representative at the 1998 Contest by Alma Lusa with "Se eu te pudesse abraçar".

References

1. "The BIG Zero". Retrieved 18 May 2012.