An Xtra Happy Birthday; November 16th!

We have another three Eurovision birthday stars to celebrate today! And one of them is even a Eurovision winner!! Today we bring you two birthday boys; one Swedish and one Irish. And no, neither of them is the winner. Our birthday girl, on the other hand… She won the contest more than 30 years ago. And she did not represent her home country. We give you Corinne Hermès!

Corinne Hermès, 56

Corinne Hermès, though she is French, represented Luxembourg at the 1983 Eurovision Song Contest in Munic. She performed the beautiful ballad “Si la vie est cadeau”, making it all the way to the top! She didn’t exactly win by a landslide, however: only six points separated first and second place this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_-k6U7Hn1E

Magnus Bäcklund, 52

Magnus represented Sweden at the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest in Riga. He did so as part of the duo Fame, alongside Jessica Andersson. They performed the uptempo song “Give Me Your Love”, finishing in a very respectable fifth place. They clearly enjoyed their Eurovision experience, since they returned to Melodifestivalen the year after. In 2004 they sang in Swedish; “Vindarna vänder oss“, but failed to achieve the same success. They finished sixth in the national final, thus not geting to go to Eurovision for a second time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOm-QD3qFCA

Brendan Murray, 21

Brendan represented Ireland at the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv. He performed the song “Dying To Try” during the second semi-final, while standing below a hot-air balloon. Despite being quite hopeful in the weeks leading up to the contest Brendan failed to qualify for the grand final. He finished 13th out of 18 participating countries, which was quite the disappointment to both him and the Irish delegation.

All of us here at escXtra want to wish Brendan, Magnus and Corinne the very best of birthdays!