Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest - 1973

Sweden chose their entry for Eurovision Song Contest 1973 in a national final called Melodifestivalen 1973 which was held on February 10th in Stockholm, hosted by Alicia Lundberg.  10 songwriters were selected by SVT for the competition. The winning song was chosen by an "expert" jury. One of the competitors were Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Björn & Benny who would later be the members of ABBA, but they only finished 3rd. Instead, the winner was the song Sommaren som aldrig säger nej sung by the group Malta. The song's lyrics were written by Lars Forsell, and it was composed by Monica and Carl-Axel Dominique.

Results:

01. Sommaren som aldrig säger nej - Malta, 37 points
02. I våran värld - Ann-Kristin Hedmark, 29 points
03. Ring Ring - Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Björn & Benny, 8 points
04. Oh vilken härlig dag - Ted Gärdestad, 7 points
05. En liten sång som alla andra - Glenmarcks, 7 points
06. Avsked från en vän - Lill-Babs, 7 points
07. Ding-Dong - Lasse Berghagen, 3 points
08. Historien om en vän - Claes-Göran Hederström, 1 point
09. En frusen ros - Inga-Lill Nilsson, 0 points
10. Helledudane en sån karl - Kerstin Aulén & Mona Wessman, 0 points

Malta had, to avoid confusion, change their name to Nova and The Dolls. For the ESC the song was translated into English and got the name You're Summer.

You're Summer is noted as being the first song in the Eurovision Song Contest that was conducted by a woman, composer Monica Dominique. In the song a comparison is made between a lover and the summer. The summer is when life grows in his lover and his lover never tells him no. The most intriguing line of this song is Oh your breasts are like swallows in nesting, written by the well-known poet Lars Forssell, member of the Swedish Academy.

The contest was held in Luxembourg and Sweden was drawn into spot 12. They finished 5th (out of 17).

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Nova consisted of Claes af Geijerstam and Göran Fristorp.

Claes af Geijerstam (Clabbe) (born February 6, 1946 in Norrköping, Östergötland, Sweden),  is a Swedish musician, radio personality and DJ who is mostly famous for his talent of rapid speech and his many years as a radio DJ.

He is also known for his role as jury member on the popular Swedish version of Pop Idol during 2004-2006. After the 2006 season, he decided to leave the programme.

Clabbe was part of the pop group Ola & the Janglers in the 1960s and formed the group Malta (later renamed Nova) together with Göran Fristorp. They competed in Melodifestivalen 1973 with the song Sommar'n som aldrig säger nej. They won the contest over ABBA, who finished in third place with their song Ring Ring (Bara du slog en signal). As a result of that win, the duo represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 1973, where they translated their song into English with the title You're Summer (You Never Tell Me No) and finished fifth.

In 1979, Clabbe was sound engineer for ABBA's North American and European tour.

Goran Fristorp (born May 26, 1948 in Orebro) is a Swedish artist, singer and songwriter.

He was a member of the duo Malta. Goran Fristorp participated as a solo artist and songwriter several times at Melodifestivalen.

    1974: Jag minns dig nog, 7th
    1974: En dröm är en dröm (duet with Sylvia Vrethammar), 6th
    1975: Som min vän, 4th
    1978: Längtan om livet med dig, 3rd

Goran worked with a lot of artists like Sylvia Vrethammar, the Dutch group Ekseption, Arne Domnerus, Putte Wickman, Anna-Lotta Larsson, Jan Lundgren, the Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen and Karoline Krüger. Goran released many successful albums and is still active as a musucian and as a producer.