| Year: | 1979 |
| Broadcaster: | British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Preselection: | A Song for Europe 1979 |
| Preselection Date: | 9 March 1979 |
| Entrant: | Black Lace |
| Song: | Mary Ann |
| Final Result: | 7th, 73 points |
The United Kingdom was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 1979 with the song "Mary Ann", written by Peter Morris, and performed by the band Black Lace. The British participating broadcaster, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), selected its entry through a national final.
A Song for Europe 1979 was planned to take place at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 8 March 1979.
After a day's rehearsals a strike by the BBC technicians stopped the show about an hour before transmission. Audio recordings of the songs were voted on by 14 regional juries: Bristol, Bangor, Leeds, Norwich, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Birmingham, Belfast, Cardiff, Plymouth, Glasgow, Southampton, and London. The jury in Manchester could not be contacted and since the winner had a more than 12 point winning margin, their scores were not included. This led to an immaterial tie for second place. The Manchester votes were later verified and added to the scores, demoting the song "Call My Name" down to third place. The following day, the 12 songs were broadcast on Terry Wogan's Radio 2 show and a recap of the top places, plus an interview with the winners took place on the BBC TV Show Nationwide the same evening.
| + A Song for Europe 19798 March 1979[1] | ||||||
| Draw | Artist | Song | Songwriter(s) | Points | Place | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black Lace | "Mary Ann" | Peter Morris | 132 | 1 | |
| 2 | Lynda Virtu | "You Are My Life" | Tony Colton & Jean Roussel | 82 | 8 | |
| 3 | Ipswich | "Who Put the Shine on Our Shoes?" | Nola York | 90 | 5 | |
| 4 | Herbie Flowers and the Daisies | "Mr Moonlight" | Herbie Flowers, Doreen Chanter | 90 | 5 | |
| 5 | M Squad | "Miss Caroline Newley" | Adrian Baker | 44 | 11 | |
| 6 | Eleanor Keenan | "Call My Name" | Roger Whittaker | 109 | 3 | |
| 7 | Guys 'n' Dolls | "How Do You Mend a Broken Heart?" | Ben Findon & Michael Myers | 56 | 10 | |
| 8 | Linda Kendrick | "All I Needed Was Your Love" | Doug Taylor | 33 | 12 | |
| 9 | Monte Carlo | "Home Again (Living With You)" | David Knowles | 83 | 7 | |
| 10 | Sal Davis | "Let It All Go" | Paul Curtis | 77 | 9 | |
| 11 | The Nolan Sisters | "Harry, My Honolulu Lover" | Terry Bradford | 101 | 4 | |
| 12 | Kim Clark | "Fantasy" | Richard Gillinson | 117 | 2 |
Only the winning song reached the UK singles chart.
Black Lace were the winners of A Song for Europe 1979 with "Mary Ann" and went on to place 7th at the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest in Jerusalem.
This was also the only Eurovision between and in which Terry Wogan did not provide either the television or radio commentary. Wogan had originally been scheduled to provide the television commentary but opted out of going to Israel following comments he made of the winner "A-Ba-Ni-Bi" sounding like "I Wanna Be a Polar Bear". Instead his Radio 2 colleague John Dunn provided the television commentary. Ray Moore provided the radio commentary on both BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2.[2]