Hopeless, alone with my song

Act: Nicole
Title: A Little Peace
Year: 1982
Chart peak: 1

And how else to end a week of war songs than with a plea for peace?

Nicole Hohloch was born Saarbruken, Germany, in 1964 and first tried to qualify for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1981 with a song called "Flieg Nicht So Hoch, Mein Kleiner Freund". It didn't get selected, but it did become a big hit in Gemrany, reaching number two in the German singles chart, and also making the top ten in Switzerland. Buoyed up by this success, she entered the German selection contest again the following year, and this time was successful. Thus it was that 17-year-old Nicole got to sing "Ein bißchen Frieden" at the Eurovision Song Contest which, following Bucks Fizz's win the previous year, was being held in a highly prestigious location... Harrogate. For any non-Brits reading this, just trust me: Harrogate is not the sort of place anyone would think of holding a major international event, be it Eurovision or anything else. Still, someone obviously thought it was a good idea. Fish may have changed hands.

Anyway, the song was a runaway winner and for the encore Nicole performed it in a multilingual version that no doubt helped its chances considerably when it came to actually selling records. It went to number one in at least seven countries, including the UK where it was the 500th chart-topper recognised by the Guinness chart books, and also completed a hat-trick of consecutive Eurovision winners topping the UK singles chart (in 1980 it was Johnny Logan with "What's Another Year" and then in 1981 the mighty Bucks Fizz with "Making Your Mind Up"). It actually entered the chart at number eight as well, which was mightily impressive in 1982, especially for a previously unknown act.

I'm afraid I couldn't find a clip of her singing this in English, so here instead is the original Eurovision performance in German.



Nicole became a bit of a TV star in Germany, but she never had another hit on the same scale. She did go on to have a few further hits in Germany (the biggest, "Ich hab dich doch lieb", was a collaboration with Trio of "Da Da Da" fame). She's still grinding them out, though: more than 20 studio albums in the last quarter of a century, and that's not including the multitude of "best of", "greatest hits" and themed collections she's also released, or indeed the various live LPs. For a one hit wonder, her discography is enormous, as is her trophy cabinet - she's won no fewer than 11 Golden Tuning Forks (the German equivalent of a Brit award), the most recent in 2001.

And she married her childhood sweetheart in 1984 and is still happily married - which isn't hugely relevant, but lovely to know anyway.