Country Portugal Language Portuguese Lyricist(s) José Niza | Artist(s) Paulo de Carvalho Composer(s) José Calvário Conductor José Calvário | |
"E Depois do Adeus" ("And after the farewell") was the Portuguese entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1974, performed in Portuguese by Paulo de Carvalho.
The song is a ballad, with Paulo de Carvalho taking the role of a man who is faced with the end of a relationship. He tells his lover how he feels, likening her to "a flower that I picked", implying that the relationship was of a comparatively short duration. He also comments on the nature of love itself, singing that it is "winning and losing".
The song was performed sixteenth on the night, following Switzerland's Piera Martell with "Mein Ruf nach dir" and preceding Italy's Gigliola Cinquetti with "Sì". At the close of voting, it had received 3 points, placing 14th (tied for last with Switzerland, Norway and Germany) in a field of 17.
It was succeeded as Portuguese representative at the 1975 Contest by Duarte Mendes with "Madrugada".
Despite the modest showing in Brighton at the Contest itself, the song achieved considerable fame as one of the two signals to launch the Carnation Revolution in Portugal against the Estado Novo regime of Marcelo Caetano - the other being the folk song "Grândola Vila Morena" by Zeca Afonso, which was the signal for the coup leaders to announce that they had taken control of strategic parts of the country. It was broadcast at 22.55 on 24 April 1974 by 'Emissores Associados de Lisboa'.
Histories of the Contest tend to take a facetious view of this fact. In his Official History of The Eurovision Song Contest, author John Kennedy O'Connor, for example, describes it as "the only Eurovision entry to have actually started a revolution", while Des Mangan suggests that other Portuguese entries (he mentions 1998's "Se eu te pudesse abraçar") would not be likely to inspire coups.