À force de prier
song performed by Nana Mouskouri
"À force de prier" (French pronunciation: [a fɔʁs də pʁije]; "By Persistently Praying") is a song recorded by Greek singer Nana Mouskouri, with music composed by Raymond Bernard and French lyrics written by Pierre Delanoë. It represented Luxembourg in the Eurovision Song Contest 1963, held in London.
Background
Conception
"À force de prier" was composed by Raymond Bernard with French lyrics by Pierre Delanoë. It is a ballad with the singer telling the object of her affections that she intends to have him love her "by persistently praying" for this to occur.
National selection
The Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion (CLT) internally selected "À force de prier" performed by Nana Mouskouri as its entry for the 8th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. She recorded the song also in German –as "Die Worte dieser Nacht" with lyrics by Hans Bradtke–, English –as "The One That Got Away" with lyrics by Lewis–, and Italian – as "La notte non lo sa"–.
Mouskouri had had her international breakthrough with the German language single "Weiße Rosen aus Athen" ("White Roses from Athens") in 1961, a song originally adapted from a Greek folk melody. The song was later translated into several different languages and went on to become one of Mouskouri's signature tunes. When she received the offer to represent Luxembourg at Eurovision in early 1963 she and her family had recently relocated from Athens, Greece, to Paris, France, where she was signed to the Philips-Fontana label.
Eurovision
On 23 March 1963, the Eurovision Song Contest was held at the BBC Television Centre in London hosted by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and broadcast live throughout the continent.
The public source identifies “À force de prier” as song performed by Nana Mouskouri. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around force, prier and song.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 16, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q3246891. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963 and 1961.
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This entry incorporates text from “À force de prier” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.