The War Is Not Over

"The War Is Not Over"
"The War Is Not Over"
Eurovision Song Contest 2005 entry
Country	Latvia
Artist(s)	Valters Frīdenbergs, Kārlis Būmeisters
As	Walters & Kazha
Language	English
Composer(s)	Mārtiņš Freimanis
Lyricist(s)	Mārtiņš Freimanis
Finals performance
Semi-final result	10th
Semi-final points	85
Final result	5th
Final points	153
Entry chronology
	◄ "Dziesma par laimi" (2004)
	"I Hear Your Heart" (2006) ►

"The War Is Not Over" was Latvia's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005, performed in English by Valters & Kaža (Valters Frīdenbergs and Kārlis Būmeisters).

The song is a gentle ballad, with the duo singing, "the war is not over, everyone knows it / it's just a reason to make us believe / that someone's the loser, someone's the winner / to make us believe that's the way it should be", which can be interpreted as a call to their listeners not to believe what official sources say.

Early recordings featured the lyrics "that someone is loser, that someone is winner". These were replaced by the above line in deference to English grammar.

The duo performed the song seated on stools with acoustic guitars. The final chorus, however, was performed standing up and using Latvian Sign Language to accompany the lyrics. It became the first Eurovision entry to feature a sign language.

As Latvia had not qualified for the finals at the 2004 contest, the song was first presented in the semi-finals. It was performed fifth, following Moldova's Zdob și Zdub with "Boonika bate doba" and preceding Monaco's Lise Darly with "Tout de moi". At the close of voting, it had received 85 points, placing 10th in a field of 25 and thus qualifying for the finals (the top ten did so).

In the finals, the song was performed twenty-third, following Vanilla Ninja representing Switzerland with "Cool Vibes" and preceding France's Ortal with "Chacun pense à soi". At the close of voting, it had received 153 points, placing 5th in a field of 24, thus qualifying Latvia for the finals at their next Contest appearance. The song had received 12 points from Ireland, Lithuania and Moldova. Due to its rise from tenth to fifth it has the largest rise from semi-final to final in Eurovision history.

This song was later recorded by the Danish pop-group Michael Learns to Rock on their album Eternity, released in 2008.

It was used as the main theme of the 2018 romantic comedy .

External links[]

"The War Is Not Over" performed at the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest on YouTube

This Latvia-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by .