The next Junior Eurovision 2025 entry we’re taking an in-depth look at is the one from Portugal. As every year, the winner of The Voice Kids Portugal has been selected for the contest — this year, that’s Inês Gonçalves, who will perform the song “Para Onde Vai o Amor?”.
Last year, Portugal was represented by Victoria Nicole with “Esperança,” finishing as the runner-up in the contest. Will they manage to take the trophy home this year?
Scroll down for the “Para Onde Vai o Amor?” lyrics
Portugal in Junior Eurovision 2025: Inês Gonçalves with “Para Onde Vai o Amor?”
Inês is 12 years old and she comes from Alentejo. Her passion for music was formed from a very early age, as she learned to play several musical instruments in school. She started singing at the age of 3 and later enrolled in Cante Alentejano classes. Her knowledge of musical instruments now includes drums, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, violin, trumpet, piano, bass, ukulele and transverse flute.
She performed live during a concerts of famous Portuguese singer Buba Espinho. Much like Espinho, Inês connected to the music style called cante, specific to the Alentejo region, a genre based on vocal performance without instrumentation. Inês also appears in Espinho’s music video for “É Tão Grande o Alentejo.”
In her free time, Inês’s passions include swimming and dancing. For her future, she would like to be a singer, an actress and to work in the fashion industry as well. Her Junior Eurovision song is the first single she has recorded and released.
What do the “Para Onde Vai o Amor?” lyrics mean?
This year, Portugal competes with a song called “Where Does Love Go?”, a meditation on the most powerful emotion of all: love—an emotion that is invisible yet deeply present. Its invisibility does not make it any less real; in fact, the lyrics of this beautiful ballad describe how love becomes a part of who you are.
The song opens with a simple yet profound question:
How is it that love can’t be seen
If I feel it here, so present?
We know that love is within us when we are in love, but the song goes further and asks where love goes when a story ends, when longing takes its place. Does this feeling ever truly leave, or does it simply transform?
Sometimes, love turns into memories—carefully kept, safely stored on one of the heart’s shelves.
Where does love go
When the time comes to leave?
And where does longing go
For those who left and won’t return?
I’ll keep within me
This shelf of memories
But in the end, love is a force revealed through actions—through the way it helps people understand one another, the way it offers answers, the way it finds those who feel lost. It doesn’t even have to make sense all the time. Love is visible to those who choose to see it, and sometimes simply feeling it intensely, even for a moment, is enough to know it exists.
And where does love come from
That answers all the whys?
It belongs to us, to those who feel it
It’s in the eyes of those who want to see it
“Para Onde Vai o Amor?” lyrics – Inês Gonçalves (Portugal JESC 2025)
Lyrics and music: Aurora Pinto, Buba Espinho, João Direitinho, Miguel Cristovinho
Portuguese textComo é que o amor não se vê Para onde vai o amor Vou guardar em mim Como é que o amor não se vê E de onde vem o amor Vou guardar em mim Afinal, é assim que o аmor ѕe vê |
English translationHow is it that love can’t be seen Where does love go I’ll keep within me How is it that love can’t be seen And where does love come from I’ll keep within me After all, thаt’s how love is ѕeen |
What do you think of “Para Onde Vai o Amor?”? Is Inês Gonçalves one of your favourites in this year’s contest? Let us know in the comments below.
