Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 1979

Eurovision Song Contest 1979
Country	Greece
National selection
Selection process	National final
Selection date(s)	February 5, 1979
Selected entrant	Elpida
Selected song	"Sokrati"
Selected songwriter(s)	Doros Georgiadis, Sotia Tsotou
Finals performance
Final result	8th, 69 points
Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest

Greece and Ellinikí Radiofonía Tileórasi (ERT) chose to host a national selection with the winner being chosen by an "expert" jury. Elpida was chosen with "Sokrati" and placed 8th at Eurovision.

Before Eurovision

National final

The national final took place on 5 February 1979 at the Municipal Theater in Piraeus and was hosted by Vasilis Tsivilikas. The winning song was chosen by a jury of 65 people who awarded each song a mark out of 10.

Final – 5 February 1979
Draw	Artist	Song	Points	Place
1	Kostas Hatzis	"Na'han oli i anthropi mia agapi opos ki ego"	379	3
2	Bessy Argyraki	"Athena (mana mou)"	322	5
3	Sofia Zaninou	"Stin arhi"	271	6
4	Christie Stasinopoulou	"Dose mou enan sticho"	462	2
5	Elpida	"Sokrati"	528	1
6	Paola Komini, Maria Filosofou, Fotini Filosofou, Dimitris Kontoyiannis & Stefanos Dekerian	"Dio se mia ombrella"	349	4

At Eurovision

"Sokrati" was performed seventh on the night (following Monaco's Laurent Vaguener with Notre vie c'est la musique and preceding Switzerland's "Peter, Sue & Marc" and Pfuri, Gorps & Kniri with "Trödler Und Co"). At the close of voting, it had received 69 points, placing 8th in a field of 19.

Elpida was accompanied on stage by Lia Vissi (who will later represent Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest 1985), Polina (who was to represent Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 1986, but Greece withdrew), Yiannis Samsiaris and Stelios Goulielmos, all four of them being backing vocalists.[1]

It was succeeded as Greek representative at the 1980 Contest by Anna Vissi & The Epikouri with "Autostop".

Points awarded by Greece

Final

12 points	Denmark
10 points	Ireland
8 points	France
7 points	Finland
6 points	Spain
5 points	Luxembourg
4 points	Israel
3 points	Netherlands
2 points	Switzerland
1 point	Sweden

Points awarded to Greece (final)
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
	Israel Portugal		Monaco Netherlands Spain Switzerland
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
Luxembourg	France Ireland		Austria Germany Sweden	Belgium Denmark

References

"Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 1979" (in Greek). musiccorner.gr. Retrieved 24 March 2015.