"Telefon, Telefon" was the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1957

Eurovision Song Contest 1957

The Eurovision Song Contest 1957 was the 2nd Eurovision Song Contest. Like the first contest, this one was still mainly a radio programme, but there was a noticeable increase in the number of people with televisions....

, performed in German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 by Margot Hielscher

Margot Hielscher

Margot Hielscher is a German singer and film actress. She appeared in over fifty films between and 1939 and 1994....

.

The song was performed seventh on the night (following the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

' Corry Brokken

Corry Brokken

Corry Brokken is a former Dutch singer.Brokken won the 1957 Eurovision Song Contest, representing the Netherlands singing "Net als toen"...

 with "Net als toen

Net Als Toen

"Net als toen" was the winning song of the Eurovision Song Contest 1957 performed in Dutch by Corry Brokken representing the Netherlands....

" and preceding France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

's Paule Desjardins

Paule Desjardins

Paule Desjardins is a French singer who represented France in the Eurovision Song Contest 1957 with the song "La belle amour" which finished second with 17 points.- References :...

 with "La belle amour

La Belle Amour

"La belle amour" was the French entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1957, performed in French by Paule Desjardins.The song was performed eighth on the night, following Germany's Margot Hielscher with "Telefon, Telefon" and preceding Denmark's Birthe Wilke & Gustav Winckler with "Skibet skal sejle...

"). At the close of voting, it had received 8 points, placing 4th in a field of 10.

The song is a ballad, with Hielscher singing to a telephone

Telephone

The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...

 and telling it that she enjoys receiving news (from the lyrics, it is implied that this is news from a lover) via that medium. In the course of the song, she answers the telephone and responds in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

 and Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

. This section of the lyrics gave rise to what is generally considered the first "gimmick performance" in Contest history, with Hielscher in fact picking up a real telephone receiver during her performance. At the end of the song, she picks up the telephone again and explains (on the telephone) that she can't talk anymore because her song (which was actually this song) is ending.

It was succeeded as German representative

Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest

Germany has participated in every Eurovision Song Contest since its beginning in 1956, although its entry in 1996 did not qualify past the pre‐selection round, and therefore was not seen in the broadcast final. No other country has been represented as often. France and the United Kingdom come in a...

 at the 1958 Contest

Eurovision Song Contest 1958

The Eurovision Song Contest 1958 was the third Eurovision Song Contest. The convention that the winning country from a year hosted the following year's contest was introduced in this year. France's win was their first. It was the last time to date that the United Kingdom did not enter the contest...

 by Hielscher again, this time with "Für zwei Groschen Musik

Für Zwei Groschen Musik

"Für zwei Groschen Musik" was the German entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1958, performed in German by Margot Hielscher....

".

An interesting point is that the word Telefon is a German adaptation of the latin term "telephone" which is very common in German speaking copuncties, however the actual German word for telephone is "Fernsprecher".