HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

"Come Back" is a single released by Welsh pop singer
Jessica Garlick Jessica Julie Anne Garlick (born 1981) is a Welsh pop singer. Garlick made her first steps into show business when she was 16. At that age, she won the Welsh final of BBC One's talent show ''Star for a Night (UK TV series), Star for a Night''. ...
which was the entry for 2002 Eurovision Song Contest.


Background


Composition

The song was written by Martyn Baylay then an airline pilot from Birmingham who prior to "Come Back" had made seven unsuccessful attempts to place a composition in the UK national preselection round for Eurovision, also known as ''A Song for Europe''. Baylay would recall: "I had always tried to deliberately write a song for the Contest, I would try anything to get in, I studied form so to speak and tried to create the perfect contest song. None of this was successful, so when I thought I don't care about formula any more, I sent in 'Come Back' and it won." The demo of "Come Back" submitted to the BBC to consider for A Song for Europe featured vocalist
Bernie Nolan Bernadette Therese Doneathy (; 17 October 1960 – 4 July 2013) was an Irish actress, singer and television personality, formerly lead vocalist of the girl group the Nolans. She was the second youngest of sisters Anne, Denise, Maureen, Lind ...
.


''A Song for Europe''

After "Come Back" had been selected as one of the eight ''Song for Europe 2002'' finalists, the
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
's Eurovision executive producer Kevin Bishop contacted the station's Music & Media Partnership managing director Rick Blaskey who'd recall Bishop advising him that "Come Back" "was written by a pilot from Birmingham who doesn't know anyone in the business and needs some help". Blaskey said of "Come Back": "my favourite song in the competition, so the next day I met the writer and contacted nowiki/>Atomic Kitten producers">Atomic_Kitten.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Atomic Kitten">nowiki/>Atomic Kitten producersBill Padley and Jeremy Godfrey. They said exactly what I said, that this was a potential winner." Blaskey had the idea of having a Pop Idol contestant perform the song and on learning that Jessica Garlick had stated a longtime ambition to compete at Eurovision she was recruited: Garlick would recall: It... all happened so quickly, I got the phone call on Monday anuary 21, 2002and recorded the song on Wednesday." "Come Back" was announced as the UK entrant for Eurovision 2002 following the March 3 television broadcast of ''A Song for Europe 2002'' on March 3, 2002, Garlick's performance of the song having solicited 68,000 televotes—40,000 more than second place.


At Eurovision 2002


Performance

On the night of the Eurovision competition, held on 25 May 2002 at the Saku Suurhall Arena in
Tallinn Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and ...
,
Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...
, "Come Back" was performed second, following '
One 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...
with " Gimme" and preceding 's Manuel Ortega with " Say a Word". For her Eurovision appearance, Garlick wore a dark red gown which was shredded from the waist down. She was accompanied on stage by five backing singers dressed in white.


Results

The final tally for "Come Back" was 111 points, which technically tied "Come Back" with the entrant " Runaway" performed by Sahlene for a third place behind the entrants from (" 7th Wonder" by Ira Losco) and the winning (" I Wanna by Marie N). "Come Back" is often cited as having finished third at Eurovision 2002, although in the contest's official rankings "Runaway" is assigned third place and "Come Back" fourth, the preference for "Runaway" being due to its two first place votes (from Latvia and ) while "Come Back" received only one first place vote (from Austria). Whether considered a third or fourth-place finisher, "Come Back" remained the highest ranked UK entrant at Eurovision of the 21st Century until
2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...
, when the UK placed 2nd with
Space Man "Space Man" is a song by British singer-songwriter Sam Ryder, released as a single on 22 February 2022 through Parlophone Records. It represented the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 in Turin, Italy, after being internally se ...
by
Sam Ryder Sam Ryder Robinson (born 25 June 1989) is an English singer, songwriter, producer, composer and social media personality. He rose to prominence in 2020, after posting music covers on TikTok, during the COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom, f ...
.


Charts

"Come Back" debuted at the No. 13 on the UK Singles Chart dated 25 May 2002: its strong showing on the 25 May night of competition for Eurovision 2002 failed to buoy the popularity of the track which dropped out of the Top 30 over the next three weeks, overall spending a total of six weeks in the chart.


References

{{authority control 2002 songs Eurovision songs of 2002 Eurovision songs of the United Kingdom