– A little scary – VG

Next Saturday, 39-year-old Mira Craig will return to the Melody Grand Prix Circus. A little scary, she admits.

It’s been 14 years since Craig won the Norwegian MGP Final as the songwriter for Maria Haucas Mettets’ “Hold On, Be Strong”. She placed fifth in the international Eurovision competition, and Mira Craig had no objection to repeating the company and representing Norway in Turin in May.

– But I’m not just for the competition then, I’m ready to have a lot of fun too, she says.

– I love presentations and I love giving presentations. Myra Craig says MGP is a perfect scene, describing her song “We’re Still Here” as “uptempo and melodic, with a catchy chorus and some Norwegian beats at the end”.

– And then I like song titles that have many meanings. “We’re still here,” she explains, probably fits a bit more with what we’ve been through in recent years, and that we need to celebrate that we’re still here.

For the past two years, Mira Craig has been working on her seventh album. It was also this record that led her to the idea of ​​subscribing to the MGP service again.

– I sat and watched last year and thought these guys, they must have been smart when they signed up! It was a shutdown and not a place to perform, so I thought maybe I should do the same this year. But at the time I didn’t have any songs, she admits.

It took me a little over six months before I found a song that I thought could work in Norway and abroad, at the same time because it was something I could vouch for and could be something specific to the Melodi Grand Prix, says Mira Craig.

Several previous winners of this year’s Melodi Grand Prix competition were revealed on Monday afternoon. Christian Ingbrigtsen (44) was one of them. Along with Kjetil Mørland – a double winner who also emerged as a songwriter this year – he wrote Ulrikke Brandstorp’s winning contribution, “Attention”, in 2020.

As is known, he never reached the Eurovision final, as it was canceled due to the Corona virus.

“Wonder of the World” Ingebrigtsen must stand up for himself.

– It’s been challenged. If you want to continue to be an artist and make music, you also have to stick your head out. Admittedly, I’m not fond of all the press and dice going around MGP, so I thrive well as a songwriter. But like I said, I want to be an artist too, he says.

Christian Ingebrigtsen shakes his head with a smile when we ask him what he had in mind when Eurovision was canceled in 2020, so that his winning single and Kjetil Mørland’s song wouldn’t have a chance to take Ulrikke Brandstorp to international level.

– It was a long period of disappointments…but the dream of representing Norway in Europe is still alive, a dream born when I was finally allowed to wake up all evening and watch Rolf Loveland and Bobbisocks win in 1985, he says.

A1’s friend Ben Adams is also this year’s songwriter.

– I was actually the one who invited him to songwriting camp. None of my songs lasted, but they were his songs. That’s how things are, says Ingbrigtsen with a smile, because he himself is now pre-qualified for the final.

I’ve owned the song for several years and knew it was going to be a single at some point, says Christian Ingbrigtsen.

Dance group Alexandra Joner (31)—who incidentally has her father Sverre artist Indris Joner on the accordion in her contribution—was also among the MGP artists presented on Monday. It was 2015 and she can tell she was “yes… nervous” at the time.

– I will guarantee this year too! But MGP is such a unique opportunity to reach so many people that it’s silly to say no, it’s great to get some traction. There are an unbelievable number of strong performers this year, but I think it will be a lot of fun.