Goodbye to Yesterday (Elina Born and Stig Rästa song)
Elina Born & Stig Rästa song
"Goodbye to Yesterday" is a song by Estonian singers Elina Born and Stig Rästa. Described as a "melancholic duet" between Rästa and Born, the song was both written and lyrically composed by Rästa. It was released on 8 January 2015 by Star Management, and later served as the lead-off single from Born's self-titled debut studio album, Elina Born. The song was the Estonian entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 2015, held in Vienna, where it placed seventh.
Critical response of the song and the Eurovision performance was positive, with the song being considered one of the favourites to win the contest that year. "Goodbye To Yesterday" also received commercial success, topping the charts in its native Estonia. The song was also number two in Finland and reached the top 20 in the UK Independent Singles and Albums Charts.
Background and composition
"Goodbye To Yesterday" was both composed and lyrically made by Estonian songwriter and singer Stig Rästa. Rästa had previously tried on numerous occasions to be the Estonian representative for the Eurovision Song Contest dating back to 2003, with all of his attempts coming with Rästa being part of a band.
According to Rästa, the lyrics of "Goodbye To Yesterday" were written "a couple years" before 2015 and are inspired by a combination of the life of a trucking driver and the era of the 1950s and 1960s, with Elina Born later stating that the song was written while the two were "a little dramatic while everything is boiling inside [us]".
“Goodbye to Yesterday (Elina Born and Stig Rästa song)” enters the record as elina Born & Stig Rästa song. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Goodbye, Yesterday and Elina can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Goodbye to Yesterday (Elina Born and Stig Rästa song)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Goodbye, Yesterday and Elina provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19262190. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015 and 2003.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Goodbye to Yesterday (Elina Born and Stig Rästa song)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Goodbye to Yesterday (Elina Born and Stig Rästa song) primary sources, Goodbye to Yesterday (Elina Born and Stig Rästa song) archive and Goodbye research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Goodbye to Yesterday (Elina Born and Stig Rästa song)”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Goodbye to Yesterday (Elina Born and Stig Rästa song)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.