Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961

Eurovision Song Contest 1961
Country	Sweden
National selection
Selection process	Melodifestivalen 1961
Selection date(s)	February 6, 1961
Selected entrant	Lill-Babs
Selected song	"April, April"
Finals performance
Final result	14th, 2 points

Sweden chose their entrant for the Eurovision Song Contest 1961 through Melodifestivalen 1961. The song April, April, performed once with Siw Malmkvist, once with Gunnar Wiklund, won. However, none of them was considered acceptable for singing in ESC, so Lill-Babs was chosen as representative instead. In the contest, once more held in Cannes, she finished in 14th place (out of 16).

Melodifestivalen 1961

Siw Malmkvist singing "April, April" at Melodifestivalen 1961.

Melodifestivalen 1961 was the Swedish national final and it was the third time that this system of picking a song had been used. One singer performed the song with a large orchestra and one with a smaller orchestra. Approximately 550 songs were submitted to SVT for the competition. The final was broadcast on Sveriges Radio TV, but was not broadcast on radio. Siw Malmkvist won with "April, April" but Lill-Babs went to Eurovision.

Results

Place	Artist1	Artist2	Song	Songwriters	Points
1st	Siw Malmkvist	Gunnar Wiklund	"April, April"	Bobbie Ericson, Bo Eneby	78
2nd	Lill-Babs	Lars Lönndahl	"Vårvinter"	Bobbie Ericson	71
2nd	Lars Lönndahl	Lily Berglund	"Spela på regnbågen"	Britt Lindeborg	71
4th	Gunnar Wiklund	Siw Malmkvist	"Vår i hjärtat"	Lennart Gröhn	58
5th	Lily Berglund	Lill-Babs	"Stockholm"	Bobbie Ericson, Eric Sandström	57

• ^1 : Performer with large orchestra
• ^2 : Performer with smaller orchestra

At Eurovision

At the contest, Sweden only managed to get 14th place (out of 16).

See also

• Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest
• Eurovision Song Contest 1961

External links

• Swedish National Final page