ESCtoday.com: Sweden: Lena Philipsson returns with autobiographical song “Maria Magdalena”
Following a 4-year break from the music scene, one of Swedish most celebrated artists and former Eurovision entrants, Lena Philipsson, is back with new music. Her newly-released single, entitled Maria Magdalena, has to do with nothing other with the artist’s autobiography…
When Maria Magdalena sings… Maria Magdalena
Having enjoyed quite a successful music career of countless hits, music albums and awardings, Lena Philipsson opted for a short pause in 2015, after the release of her latest personal album, Jag är ingen älskling (I’m not a sweetheart).
However, it’s now been 4 years since then, and the Swedish pop artist makes the headlines again, with a song named after her birth name, this being Maria Magdalena Filipsson. Moreover, since Maria Magdalena was a witness in Jesus’s resurrection, this song and title could easily be related to Lena’s resurrection as a singer. Lena herself thinks this title was a cool option for her autobiographical song, the music of which was inspired as she was driving. In particular, she says:
Actually the melody came to me as I was driving the car. Some tunes popped into my head, which I found very lovely and nice to listen to while driving!
Yes! The video was filmed in Berlin by Lena’s daughter, Saga Herngren, who lives there, while both the mother and her daughter did the editing.
Lena Philipsson at Eurovision
After 3 previous attempts, the pop artist Lena Philipsson took part and won Melodifestivalen 2004, Sweden’s Eurovision national selection event. Hence, she earned the right to represent her home country at the Eurovision Song Contest 2004 with the song Det gör ont (It hurts).
According to the then applicable regulation, Lena competed directly in the final, as Sweden had finished within the previous year’s Top 10. She finally reached a 5th place on the scoreboard, jointly with Cyprus’s Lisa Andreas, who also scored a total of 170 points.
