Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

MELODIFESTIVALEN

Samira Manners: the singer giving Sweden’s Melodifestivalen an English accent

The second heat of Melodifestivalen, the Swedish TV marathon to select a singer to the Eurovision Song Contest, may be of extra interest to Brits in Sweden, given the distinctive English accent of one of the contestants.

Published: 12 February 2022 11:03 CET
Samira Manners: the singer giving Sweden's Melodifestivalen an English accent
Samira Manners, who has an English father and a Swedish mother, performing with her guitar. Photo: Annika Berglund/SVT

Twenty-one-year-old Samira Manners will perform her song, ‘I want to be loved’ in Melodifestivalen’s second heat. 

That English accent is completely genuine. Samira grew up with a Swedish mother and English father, who comes from the coastal town of Portishead outside of Bristol.

Samira grew up in Sweden, though, in the small town of Svedala, a short hop from Malmö.

Samira started writing songs as she entered her teenage years and has continued into adulthood. Nowadays Samira calls Malmö her home, having moved to Sweden’s third city as she studies at Musikhögskolan. Unsurprisingly, she studies on their singer-songwriter program.

Growing up, it was her father who gave much of her musical inspiration.

“My dad loves music and I grew up a lot with him,” says Samira, who speaks English at home with her family. “He loves Kate Nash, Lily Allen and also reggae. In general, he loves genres that I never normally see or hear here in Sweden.”

While this will be Samira’s Melodifestivalen debut, she has had musical success prior to tonight. In 2020 she released the song ‘Do It All Again’ which currently has over two million streams on Spotify. ‘I want to be loved’ will be Samira’s fifth single and there are plans to release an album later this year. 

Her Melodifestivalen entry was written on a warm summer day last year, when she penned personal lyrics about wanting to find a loving relationship.

READ ALSO: Melodifestivalen 2022: How to watch Sweden’s most popular TV show

The co-writer of the song, Fredrik Andersson, is somebody with a great reputation in Melodifestivalen folklore. He was the songwriter behind ‘If I Were Sorry’ for Frans, the breakthrough sensation who represented Sweden the last time the Eurovision Song Contest was held in Sweden in 2016. 

After Samira’s song was written, Fredrik was the one who thought it may pass Melodifestivalen and sent the song to Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT, who chose the 28 songs that will compete this year.

Written for the contest, this song is not. For Samira there is a huge chasm between what it means to be taking part in Melodifestivalen here in Sweden, and the impression of her English family about this significance.

“When they called me to say I had got into Melodifestivalen, I told my grandparents”, Samira explains. “They were like, that’s nice, your cousin also plays the violin. I don’t think it’s as big there as it is here.”

Samira is right. The show taking place in the Avicii Arena this week will be watched by millions and will generate huge hits that will last until the summer if not beyond.

The huge event brings in big name acts and record labels in a way that it hasn’t been the case in the UK for this century, where the connotation that all things Eurovision is all things kitsch is still engrained to many in British culture.

“I think here [in Sweden] it is generally so much more competitive,” adds Samira. “You always have the best stuff on show and they make such a big deal about it. It is so sad as I think the UK has such a great music industry.”

Samira is one of the seven acts competing in Melodifestivalen’s second heat, and is not the only one with interest for British readers.

The hard rock group, Browsing Collection, are fronted by lead singer Mimi Brander, who has developed an uncanny Scottish accent thanks to her sister, who is married to a Scotsman. Also taking part this Saturday is John Lundvik, the winner of Melodifestivalen’s 2019 edition, who lived in London until he was six years old. 

They will all be hoping to place better than half English/Swedish singer Shirley Clamp, who finished sixth of last week’s seven acts with the song ‘Let There Be Angels’.

Alongside the other names competing this week is former Idol winner Liamoo, with roots in Scandinavia and the Philippines, Alvaro Estrella, who’s parents come from Chile, and Tone Sekelius, making history as the first openly trans artist on the Melodifestivalen stage. In terms of a diverse mix of musical genres and artists this is a hugely varied Melodifestivalen heat.

One can watch Melodifestivalen on SVT Play globally or by tuning in to SVT 1 at 20:00. Viewers can vote in the show by ringing the number on screen or via downloading the free Melodifestivalen app. 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

EUROVISION

So why does Sweden ‘love Eurovision too much’?

'Please don't be angry with us, we just love Eurovision too much," went the chorus of the cabaret number Sweden's host Petra Mede performed at Thursday's semi-final with Schlager start Charlotte Perelli. But did they really explain Sweden's Eurovision obsession?

Published: 11 May 2024 15:39 CEST
So why does Sweden 'love Eurovision too much'?

“Yes we’re slightly obsessed, but this competition is what we do best”, asserted the tongue-in-cheek song, written by scriptwriting trio Edward af Sillén, Daniel Réhn och Mathias Venge.

The song put Sweden’s Eurovision obsession and the resulting success down to the country’s dark, cold winters and the way schools promote music among the young. 

“You have to understand this is Sweden. It’s cold and dark. we were desperate for an effort to ignite a spark. So this contest gave us the idea, to show you all we’re more than depression and IKEA,” Perelli explained in the song’s break. 

“In Sweden we teach our kids in school more than history and sports,” Mede takes over. “They learn that the Eurovision is cool, and non-political of course. That writing songs is the ultimate success, if not for Sweden, then try your luck for Cyprus.”

This was all meant in fun, but is there a grain of truth to this explanation for Swedes’ national obsession with the schmalzy overproduced pop that characterises most Eurovision entries?  

READ ALSO: Why Melodifestivalen constantly outperforms Eurovision in Sweden

It’s certainly true that Melodifestivalen, held in February and the start of March, is perfectly timed to help Swedes survive the final spurt of the grim Swedish winter, with friends and families using the performances to justify Saturday nights spent huddled on the sofa gobbling crisps and debating the merits of each performance. 

It’s also true that school, or at least the Culture Schools or Kulturskolan you will find in every Swedish town and city, have helped make the country the world’s leading per-capita exporter of pop music. 

According to Bengt Månsson, host of the Swedish fan podcast Sa du Schlager?, who The Local met in the Eurovision press centre in Malmö, these schools have helped get Swedes singing. 

“For only a small amount of money, they teach kids music or singing, and, of course, Eurovision and Melodifestivalen is an important part of that. Because the kids gets interested in music through Melodifestivalen and Eurovision, and of course, they want to sing like Loreen, or else they want to sing in a choir.” 

But Månsson argues Sweden’s more obsessive relationship with Eurovision started not with ABBA’s 1974 victory in Brighton with Waterloo, but a bit later.  

“Everything, I think, started in the 80s. First the gay movement adopted Eurovision, and then the parents that were young then introduced their kids to Eurovision and then you have these Melodifestival tryouts, and that makes it like a folkfest or ‘people’s festival’.” 

Becoming a folkfest allowed Melodifestivalen to then channel the  much older and deeper Swedish tradition of group singing.  

“We like to sing in public, but not when other people notice you,” Månsson said. “If I sing in a group, then it doesn’t matter if I sing badly. There are so many choirs in Sweden, and they are singing, of course, Schlager.” 

He also credits the Swedish music mogul Bert Karlsson with giving Sweden’s entries their commercial edge, saying his Mariann records “had almost every single artist that was in Melodifestivalen in the 80s on his record label”, including Carola Häggkvist, Herrey’s, Kikki Danielsson and Eddie Meduza.  

The group of about 30 songwriters who stand behind almost all Melodifestival contestants, he continued, had largely stuck to Karlsson’s successful Schlager formula.

“I think that these people have followed in his footsteps and learnt their trade from that,” he said. 

In their act, Sweden spoofed how Finland would have hosted Eurovision had Käärijä won. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT

Still, how it has hosted the contest six times, three of them in the last eleven years, Sweden at least knows how to put on a good show.

In their song, Mede and Perelli tackled head-on the strong feeling among many Eurovision fans that Finland’s Käärijä was the rightful winner in 2023, with his wild outfit and pounding drinking son, Cha Cha Cha, with Sweden’s Loreen only rescued by the national jury votes. 

“We can hear your complaints, we can feel your fury, when they close the vote and we meet the jury,” Mede sung, before introducing a performance that gave a light-hearted take at how the Finns would have tackled the contest had they hosted it, with dancing Moomins and spinning Finnish folk designs.

It would have been a bit too close to the mark, if the dancers hadn’t then given way to Käärijä himself, who sent the crowd absolutely wild. 

SHOW COMMENTS