Melodi Grand Prix participant Ulrikke added Norwegian lyrics to her competing song because she wanted to “surprise” listeners. 

The 27-year-old’s song, Honestly, is performed entirely in English, barring one line of Norwegian in the chorus. 

“When I sing ‘til evig tid’ we wanted to do something that represented Norway, but that was natural for me,” she told The Euro Trip. 

“‘Til evig tid’ is a really romantic and poetic way of saying ‘forever’ to someone in Norway, so it felt like the right thing to some up everything with. 

“Also, I wanted to try to surprise people because Honestly and Attention are like proper Eurovision ballads, but we were thinking how we could do something that will surprise the listeners when they hear it for the first time, and maybe the second time as well.

“It was really hard because everyone was releasing snippets of their [Melodi Grand Prix] songs and everyone was doing almost a minute. We cannot do a minute of the song because we would be revealing too much so we had 32 seconds and everyone was wondering what we were doing.” 

Ulrikke has already qualified for the final of Melodi Grand Prix having advanced from the first semi final earlier this month. 

When she performs in the final on February 4, it will be her second appearance at the sharp end of Norway’s national selection for Eurovision. In 2020 she won the competition with the song Attention and was lined up to represent her country at Eurovision before the contest was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Asked by Euro Trip host Rob Lilley if Honestly is an evolution of Attention, Ulrikke said: “That’s what I wanted to do because I loved Attention and it was the first song I felt like I had found my voice and my sound on.

“I knew that if I was coming back [to Melodi Grand Prix] I wanted to have a song that was a bit like Attention but not Attention. It was really difficult but Honestly feels like a grown-up me and it’s the most vulnerable and personal song I’ve ever written.”

Featured image – Julia Marie Naglestad / NRK