Eurovision 2022 Sweden profile: 'Hold Me Closer' by Cornelia Jakobs

Sweden in Eurovision

Sweden debuted at the third Eurovision Song Contest in 1958 and have competed in all but three years since, missing the contest in 1964, 1970 and 1976. They have claimed victory six times, making them the second most successful Eurovision nation after Ireland with their seven wins.

Sweden is one of only two countries to have Eurovision victories in four different decades (the other is the United Kingdom). Victories for Sweden came in -

• 1974 - ABBA - 'Waterloo'

• 1984 - Herreys - 'Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley'

• 1991 - Carola - 'Fångad av en stormvind'

• 1999 - Charlotte Nilsson - 'Take Me To Your Heaven'

• 2012 - Loreen - 'Euphoria'

• 2015 - Måns Zelmerlöw - 'Heroes'

Since the semi-final system was introduced in 2004, they have only missed the final once when Anna Bergendahl finished 11th in her semi-final in 2010.

2022 Entry: Cornelia Jakobs - 'Hold Me Closer'

• Semi-Final: Sweden has been drawn to compete in the second half of Semi-Final 2.

• My Eurovision Scoreboard fan ranking: 1st of 40 entries

• Odds to win ranking: 3rd out of 40 entries

(Rankings as of 25 March 2022)

About the artist

Cornelia Jakobs (Anna Cornelia Jakobsdotter Samuelsson) is a 30-year-old Swedish singer-songwriter and the daughter of Jakob Samuel, lead singer of glam metal band 'The Poodles'.

After an unsuccessful Swedish Idol audition at the age of 16, Cornelia was one of five young women to win a place in the girl group 'Love Generation' in 2010, beating over 500 hopefuls. In 2011, the group was down to four members and entered the Swedish national final Melodifestivalen with 'Dance Alone'. The song made the Andra Chansen second chance round but failed to progress to the final (that's Cornelia with the blonde hair)!

The girls returned in 2012 as a trio with 'Just A Little Bit' but finished sixth in their semi-final and were eliminated. A name change to Stockholm Syndrome saw the group release five more singles before disbanding in 2016.

Cornelia began to release music as a solo artist in 2018, with one of her singles 'Weight of the World' becoming the soundtrack for the HBO Nordic series 'Björnstad'. She also co-wrote Efraim Leo's Melodifestivalen 2021 entry 'Best Of Me' which made the Andra Chansen second chance round. 2022 saw Cornelia enter Melodifestivalen as a solo artist for the first time.

About the song

'Hold Me Closer' is an emotional ballad about the difficult end of a relationship, co-written by Cornelia in conjunction with her songwriter best friend Isa Molin and writer and producer David Zandén.

Cornelia told The Euro Trip Eurovision podcast about the writing process with Isa -

"We've been writing a couple of times before but this was the first time that we really went in to writing for me and I think we both kind of got like why haven't we done this before? Because we're so good writing together...like it works so good! Also with David...we're like a great trio, we've written eight or nine songs after this..."

How she was chosen for Eurovision

Cornelia was selected to represent Sweden after winning Melodifestivalen 2022. The six week annual event which features 28 songs is used as the national selection show for Eurovision.

'Hold Me Closer' won the first heat on 5 February 2022 and went direct to the final on 12 March where it won the jury vote and came second with the public which was enough to take the win and earn the ticket to Turin.

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Sweden will compete in semi-final 2 on May 12 (European time) in Turin.