"To nie ja!", "It wasn't me!"; (often rendered without the exclamation mark) was the Polish entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1994, performed in Polish by Edyta Górniak. This marked Poland's debut at the contest, and consequently the first time that the Polish language had been used in a contest entry. The song achieved second place in the Eurovision final – at the time the highest ever placing attained by a debut song (even in the first contest, Switzerland won with their second song of the night). It was released as a single in English as "Once in a Lifetime".

The song is a dramatic ballad, with Górniak describing herself as having an "easy world" – seemingly one of easy distinctions between good and bad. She sings that she is not Eve, referring to the Biblical character, and asking for her listener not to blame her for the sins of that figure, and to accept her for who she really is.

The result stood as the most successful first-time entry in contest history, until the ballad "Molitva" performed for Serbia by Marija Šerifović won the Eurovision Song Contest 2007. Serbia and Montenegro's entry in the 2004 contest also placed second. At the same contest, Hungarian entrant Friderika, making her country's début with "Kinek mondjam el vétkeimet?" placed fourth, presaging the domination of the contest by Eastern and Central European performers in subsequent years.

Górniak was threatened with disqualification after singing the second half of the song in English during the dress rehearsal watched by the national jury members. An English-language version was later recorded, titled "Once in a Lifetime", with lyrics by Graham Sacher.

The song was performed twenty-fourth on the night, following Russia's Youddiph with "Vyechniy stranik" and preceding France's Nina Morato with "Je suis un vrai garçon". At the close of voting, it had received 166 points, placing second in a field of twenty five.

It was succeeded as the Polish representative in the 1995 contest by Justyna with "Sama".

Edyta Anna Górniak (born 14 November 1972) is a Polish pop singer. Górniak started as a musical theatre actress in 1990. She performed in the most popular musical in Polish history, the Tony Award-nominated Metro. Some of its shows took place on Broadway.

The Eurovision Song Contest 1994 was the 39th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 30 April 1994 at the Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ), and presented by Cynthia Ní Mhurchú and Gerry Ryan, the contest was held in Ireland following the country's victory at the 1993 contest with the song "In Your Eyes" by Niamh Kavanagh. It was the first time that any country had hosted two successive editions of the contest, following the previous year's contest held in Millstreet.

Fabulous performance and a wonderful song, Edyta gave it all she had and was so close to winning on the night.

Enjoy
Eddy @thesquaredisc

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