In and out of love

We're in the thick of Melodifestival season, and what am I spending my free time doing? Guessing Melodifestival rejects from this year.

It's a pretty fun game, even if one I'm not particularly good at. It is pretty early in the year, though, so we might not have heard many of them yet. Some we might not hear at all until another Melodifestival, if ever.

The ones I've got (well, am guessing) so far (all of these made it past at least the preliminary submission stage and appear on the list SVT released of the rejects), though obviously the artists who ended up performing them aren't necessarily the ones who would have performed them in the contest:

Trine Jepsen, "I'll Never Fall In Love Again": this schlagery song may not have done too well in Denmark's national final, but I still really like it. The songwriters are Swedish (or at least some of them are) and the song was originally listed in press releases as "I Never Fall In Love Again," the same title as one of the songs on SVT's list.

Neo, "Born To This World": interesting idea, this (I presume the "Born To This World" SVT listed was this one both because the title isn't incredibly common and the song is only a few seconds longer than three minutes)--I wonder if Neo, sometimes the purveyor of '60s/'70s falsetto pop and sometimes electronic pop ranging from BWO to Evan, would have ended up this song if it had been chosen for Melodifestivalen? It's good and catchy, but "Higher" and "Flower Power Supergirl" both get me dancing more (and I've got a thing for "Play The Song," too). Speaking of "Higher," there was a Melodifestival reject with that title, too, but that's a far more common title (and the song length isn't nearly so perfect, though obviously that can be changed), so it's probably a coincidence.

Sara Löfgren, "Glöd": former Fame Factory contestant Sara was so close to making her second appearance in Melodifestivalen, as this song really was going to be sung by her. Instead, "Glöd" made it to the final round of the song selection but no further, and instead had to settle for being released as a single by Sara (at least, I think it was released as a single--I definitely heard it on the radio, but I'm not sure if it ever got a commercial release).

Anorah, "Never Heard Of Him": it's probably for the best that this catchy attitude-filled semi-narrative pop-rock song about getting walked in on while you're in the middle of cheating didn't make it into the contest since it would never have fit in (and if it had qualified and someone other than Anorah had performed it, I'm picturing a performance we all would have remembered in the way we remember The Nicole's performance). It's a shame, though, that no one understands what I'm referencing when I quote it...it's got more than its share of...shall we say...memorable lines.

You wonder
Why my skirt
Is turned backwards inside out

I don't know but
Ohh, I've got some slippery floors
The wind's pretty strong outdoors
I fell and my skirt just kind of flipped this way I guess

Alex mentioned that Johan Krafman's songs were submitted to and rejected from Melodifestivalen, too, though I'm not sure which that's true for (presumably "Disarmed," but I don't know).

If you've got any guesses or corrections, I'd love to hear them. View the lists of the top 116 and the finalists for yourselves.