Song of the Day – In 2003, France sent the unknown singer Louisa Baileche to Riga. She had performed on the Comédie Française stage as well as the famous Folies Bergères, in a French version of the musical “Nine”. In popular music, however, she was (and remained) relatively unknown. She is of Italian and Northern African descent. Her entry “Monts et Merveilles” (“Mountains and Wonders”, idiomatically “The Moon and the Stars”) featured some African elements.
It is a melodic ballad in which the singer sings of the end of a relationship. The lovers swore extravagant things to each other, such as the titular “Monts et Merveilles”. Baileche sings she is “naked and without wings, like a disappointed angel” and that she now is “homeless”. The entry was a minor favorite, but failed to make an impact on the night. Many think that the “hair incident” was what killed the song’s chances: Streaks of her dark hair covered her face for much of the performance and gave it a rather funny feel. At the end of the voting Baileche came 18th, a disappointment after two successful French entries in 2001 and 2002.
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I LOVE this song!! But I am always disturbed when I watch the performance. How can her hair be fine one second and totally retarded the next?? With zero vigorous movements in between?? I DON’T UNDERSTAND!!! XD
I love it too! My favorite Eurovision song ever…
aww
This song completely bores me!
I love this song and it is very high on my 2003 list ( probably 4th after Belgium , Norway and Turkey ) but that hair accident did have its impact on me and the viewers.Still a 9 out of 12 !
Spain 2003 was another great one damaged live !
I love this song and will never understand why it did so badly. It is in 4th place on my 2003 list (1st Romania – 2nd Portugal – 3rd Estonia).
Love this! Totally underrated in 2003.
Love this! Hugely underrated, even in a good year such as 2003. Shame about the hair though.
It’s funny how, after two ballads by female alone on stage getting France top 5, people were certain France would do it again at first, and through the months the bookies started putting France down and down and down but they never saw Louisa that low. 8 from Bosnia and 6 from Romania, almost the only points she got, both coming probably from juries (considering there are no relationships or geopolitics linked between these two and France)… yeah every one afterwards blamed the hair and said the televote disregarded this because of this… maybe so, but I think it’s more one of those cases when people “like” it but don’t “love” it enough to vote for it. I can’t think of anyone really hating this and with full juries, all liking it, it would have had a clear top 10 result. It’s my #3 of 2003 behind Belgium and Estonia, who are clearly above the entire rest. I’m no fan of 2003 and don’t like anything else, except maybe Bosnia (but especially in audio), Norway, Sweden and Austria. Russia was horrible live, Spain is utterly overrated by fans, Iceland, Romania and Netherlands lame. All in all, Turkey is a fairly good winner, considering it’s the 00s and it’s an incredible live. Deserved to do well.
Add me to the list of those who love this song too. In a year that almost all of my favourites before the contest, were a disaster live, France along with Estonia were sort of an oasis. Definately underrated.
I agree. 2003 is the year where my studio version and final lists are completely different. So many good songs were butchered live and so many middling ones were flawlessly performed. In the end, almost everyone ended up with an average score …
Hello togravus
Omg…Phelps loses another gold medal!
And our Velimir Stjepanovic, big surprise, came 6th!
But OK…he’s 18 years old! 
Chad Le Klos is cute!
I’m sad for my Kirsty Coventry from Zimbabwe!!
Qatar got medal today!! YAAAAAAY!
This is my favorite that year. I was trying to decide between this and Russia since t.A.T.u. were singing something different to the usual stuff, but their live was so bad that Louisa came out on top.
I still like t.A.T.u. that year despite their, undoubtedly, bad vocal performance
Happy birthday, Manuel!
Gracias ^^
It is your birthday!?!?
Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!
YAAAAAAAAAAAY Dimitrij Ovtcharov from Germany is in semis!! I hope he gets medal!! Why always Chinese to get all medals in table tennis!
I luv Dimitrij Ovtcharov! 
OMG Spain still doesn’t have any medal!
i know, you can’t only rely in tennis and football in sports :p
But basketball team is great, they will get medal!
In football thy sent junior team to Olympics!
They will also take medals in synchronized swimming 100%!
In Beijing they had 18 (5,10,3) medals!
France is so good in judo, you will get 5th medal in judo soon (and all are female)!
I watch Novak Djokovic now, he lost first set to Leyton Hewitt!
not all are female, Ugo Legrand (bronze medal) is not a girl, and Teddy Riner, 5 times world champion will participate friday! Yes Lucie Décosse is very expected here for a gold! Simon and Del Potro is very tight
We’re good in swimming too… so far that’s all, our fencing has never been so bad, it’s a shock
Our swimming has never been so bad. All of Germany is in shock atm. The last time we didn’t win a single medal in swimming was in 1932. Even Spain has won a silver medal now …
now Djokovic looks good, Simon is out, our last hopes are on Tsonga, twice semi finalist in Wimbledon so a possible medal!
He plays against Djokovic in 1/4!!
Please let us have medal in tennis, because our world champion Zorana Arunovic has just claimed 4th place, she lost bronze!!
Don’t worry, plenty of medals wait for you!
YAAY Greece, Czech Republic and Singapore got first medals!
Lucie won gold. All of France is happy, she’s one of our dearest favorites, along with Teddy Riner! Glad for Edith for bronze, she’s great (lost in final to Lucie in 2001 World championships)… I hope Tsonga beats Djokovic just because I like Tsonga more but I doubt anyone can beat Federer. Only Nadal can and this season he was bad on grass. I hope Agnel get a 4th medal tonight :p
Because you hope for Tsonga, Agnel failed and claimed 4th place!
NOLE FTW!!!!
Spain got first medal, silver in swimming!!
I don’t think he failed because of that but because he got tired after his three first medals. Remember, he was a world champion in 400m, he only came in the 200m and 100m for the past few years
LOL of course
But you are so cruel, you won’t our only hope for medal to fail! So I simply had to tell you that! 
A more introvert and difficult ballad than France did send in 2001 and 2002. Still it’s very pleasant and it’s in 3rd place on my 2003 list, after Belgium and Spain. Iceland and Romania are the other ones on my top 5. 2003 was a year with many average songs, neither great or horrible.
You got silver!!
Haha, yes! I did obviously underestimate our Swedish team. I feel very ashamed now.
I forgot to mention one thing: This song is one of the best examples from a rather big personal list called “Eurovision songs where the verse is better than the chorus”.
A very good song, among the better ones of that edition.