Aftonbladet has revealed that SVT advised John Lundvik not to compete with “Bigger Than Us” in Melodifestivalen 2019.
John Lundvik who will represent Sweden at Eurovision 2019 was originally going to compete in this years Melodifestivalen with “Bigger Than Us”. The singer told Aftonbladet that he has written the song to compete in the contest, but that SVT advised he change his song choice to “Too Late For Love”. In the end both parties agreed to compete with “Too Late For Love”.
“Bigger Than Us” went on to be submitted in to the United Kingdom’s Eurovision selection process, Eurovision: You Decide. Michael Rice was one of two artists to perform the song in the selection and went on to be selected as the United Kingdom’s entrant for Tel Aviv. This means that John Lundvik will be competing as both a singer and a songwriter at the same contest.
“Too Late For Love” will have to undergo some changes to compete at the Eurovision Song Contest. The performance at Melodifestivalen featured both four on stage backing singers, but also a further three backing singers who were off stage. Christer Björkman explained that the four singers who were on stage at Melodifestivalen will stage for Tel Aviv.
Source: Aftonbladet
Sweden debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1958 and has gone on to be one of the contest’s most successful countries. The country has won the contest six times, the most recent being in 2015. Sweden’s first victory came in 1974 when ABBA won the contest in Brighton with “Waterloo”. Since missing out on the final in 2010, Sweden has gone on to finish 3rd twice and has won the contest twice, only in 2013 did the country place outside of the top 10 in the final.