Switzerland

Once upon a time, 1956 to be specific, the Swiss city of Lugano was picked as the location to launch a song contest between seven European countries called the Eurovision Song Contest (inspired by the San Remo Music Festival).  This debut Contest featured two acts each from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland competing in the space of a little over 1.5 hours to be crowned the winner.  In the first edition of the Contest, two jury members from each country voted by secret ballot for their favorites, and chose Lys Assia's Refrain as the first winner ever of Eurovision.  [Her second song in the evening representing Switzerland was performed in German, coming in second, making her the only artist to place first and second in the same Contest]:

In the next two years Lys Assia continued to represent the country (coming in 8th in 1957 and 2nd in 1958), before stepping away from the competition.  Switzerland fared fairly well in the first few decades of the Contest, being represented in every one of its four national languages (French, German, Italian and Romansh) and including artists in its roster not originally hailing from Switzerland, a tradition that Luxembourg and Monaco soon adapted to great success as well.  Most prominent among these non-Swiss borns artists was Esther Ofraim, and Israeli citizen born to Syrian Jews, who in 1963 came close to taking the winner's trophy to Switzerland with her song T'en va Pas in London (with Denmark eking out its first victory by a mere two points that night).  Switzerland also managed to score two nul point finishes (1964 and 1967) during that time, along with four second place finishes and two Swiss songs placing third.  Then, during the 1988 Dublin Contest, a little known French Canadian powerhouse vocalist named Celine Dion hit the stage with Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi.  The song was the result of a true multicultural collaboration (written by Turkish-Swiss Atilla Sereftug and composed by Italian-Swiss Nella Martinetti), and brought Switzerland its long awaited second victory (but not before a nail-biting awarding of the points, beating the UK by 2 points at the last minute).

That win became a turning point in Switzerland's Eurovision history.  Though Celine Dion went on to launch a global career (and the writer and composer of the song achieved great success in Europe, often with their frequent collaborations), the country's Eurovision success sort of ended that night.  It has become a rarity to see Swiss entries at the top of the scoreboard, with the exception of Annie Cotton placing third with Moi, Tout Simplement in 1993 and Sandra Simo placing fifth with Canzone per Te in 1991.  In 1998's Birmingham show for example, Switzerland scored its third nul point, now putting the country into a 2nd place tie with Turkey for the worst-of honors.  In its twelve appearances since Birmingham (the country was left out of the Contest in the qualifying rounds for several years as new countries joined the competition), Switzerland failed to make it to the Final six times, and in the years where it clawed its way into the Finals, the results have been dismal.  This year Swizerland chose a group act in the form of Takasa who will be performing You and Me on the Malmo stage, with hopes of breaking its losing streak: