Wiktoria on "As I Lay Me Down", Spanish Fans, and Melodifestivalen (Interview)

Photo: Lizel Strömberg (ZEL Photography)

Wiktoria has followed up her Melodifestivalen debut with an immediate return to the contest. Once again her song has proved popular with the public, already having garnered a respectable amount of iTunes purchases and online streaming. Her 2017 entry "As I Lay Me Down" was written by the same writers behind her 2016 entry "Save Me" and despite struggling more with the international juries than the public voters, she hopes that the positive feedback from international viewers will give her a better result the second time around.

Both of her Melodifestivalen entries are in the genre of country-pop and it's a style she feels content to continue making music in. She has been working on her abilities as a song-writer and admits that opening up with a more personal narrative when writing means that occasionally she'll feel inclined to keep a too-personal product to herself as opposed to distributing it to the public. She also followed up her 2016 run with a more sombre song, "Unthink You", that even had a music video to go with it. Now she is predicted by bookmakers as the likely winner of Melodifestivalen 2017 - though all will have to wait and see if the international juries will warm to her more than they did in 2016.

She also shares about a memorable encounter with some Spanish fans after a gig she performed at Eurovision 2016 (which took place in Stockholm). "When I started crying? Oh my god, yes! The Spanish guys that started singing 'Save Me', screaming 'Save Me', oh my god, yeah. I started crying. It was so overwhelming, it was so much love. I was just like, 'This is too much! I cannot do this!' and I started crying. It was so beautiful. It meant a lot. It's a very good memory. It was too much, it was so nice and oh my god, they were so happy and that's what made me like... 'Oh my god, you're doing this for me?' I think that was the hardest part. I'm just the 19-year-old Wiktoria from Sweden from a small town, why are you screaming at me? This is so weird! But... and they love the song and that was such a good memory."

Watch our full interview with Wiktoria here: