"Hold Me Closer" – Cornelia Jakobs wins Melodifestivalen 2022

After five weeks of shows, it was time for the sixth and final week of Melodifestivalen 2022. The 2022 edition of Melodivestivalen was different in terms of shows as the 6 week tour had been scrapped and all six shows were broadcast from Stockholm.

From 28 songs and six shows, all was concluded tonight, when the Swedish public and eight international juries agreed to send Cornelia Jakobs to Turin, Italy with the song "Hold Me Closer".

Cornelia Jakobs won the international juries and received the second-most points from the public. The bookmakers didn't have any doubt in Cornelia as the winner.

"Hold Me Closer" is written by Cornelia Jakobsdotter, David Zandén and Isa Molin.

Cornelia Jakobs

Anna Cornelia Jakobsdotter Samuelsson, 30, lives and breathes music. Since she was seven years old, the stage has been her "comfort zone" and there has never been a plan B. Already in middle school, she started playing in various garage rock bands.

Since Cornelia's passion is to play live for audiences, she writes her music with that perspective. She is an artist with strong creative visions in both music and visuals and she has for the past five years done pretty much everything herself.

So far, 9 singles have been released and she is now completing her debut album.

Cornelia Jakobs has competed in the Melodifestivalen both as an artist and songwriter. In 2011 and 2012 she participated as part of the group Love Generation, and last year she was one of the songwriters behind Efraim Leo's "Best of Me".

Melodifestivalen 2022

The 2022 edition of Melodivestivalen was different in terms of shows as the 6 week tour was scrapped due to COVID-19, just like last year. All six shows were broadcast from Stockholm, with the first three shows took place at Avicii Arena (former Globen Arena), where Eurovision 2000 and 2016 was held. The last three shows were aired from Friends Arena.

• 5 February: Deltävling 1
• 12 February: Deltävling 2
• 19 February: Deltävling 3
• 26 February: Deltävling 4
• 5 March: Semi-final
• 12 March: Final

All the shows were hosted by Oscar Zia.

The format for Melodifestivalen 2022 was almost the same as in previous years meaning that in each of the 4 heats (deltävling), there were 2 songs that qualified directly to the final and another 2 songs qualified to the Semi-final (previous "Second Chance"). At the Semi-final, the 8 songs were split in two groups, and the best 2 songs from each group qualified for the Final.

Sweden in Eurovision Song Contest

Since 1958 Sweden has participated 60 times in Eurovision Song Contest with great success. They have won the contest 6 times:

• 1974: ABBA – Waterloo
• 1984: Herreys – Diggi-loo Diggy-ley
• 1991: Carola – Fångad Av En Stormvind
• 1999: Charlotte Nilsson – Take Me To Your Heaven
• 2012: Loreen – Euphoria
• 2015: Måns Zelmerlöw – Heroes

They came last two times (1963 and 1977), and since the introduction of the Semi-finals in 2004 Sweden managed to qualify for the Grand Final 16 out of 17 times! (only failed the qualification in 2010)