Playing with Numbers
2015 single by Molly Sterling
"Playing with Numbers" is a song performed by Irish singer-songwriter Molly Sterling. Self-described as a song that takes the perspective of one who took "risks that [they] really believed would pay off and [later] reflecting on the consequences of that gamble that went wrong in life or love", the song was written and lyrically composed by Sterling and The Brilliant Things member Greg French. It was released on 3 April 2015 by Lunar Records. The song was the Irish entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 2015, held in Vienna, where it failed to qualify from the second semi-final, finishing in 12th place out of 17 entries in the second semi-final, two spots away from a qualification spot.
Critical response of the song was positive, especially from local Irish media. The song was described by Irish television personality Marty Whelan as "really great", stating his belief that the song had potential to get a good result at the Eurovision Song Contest.
Background and composition
The song was written by Sterling and Greg French, the latter being a band member for Irish synthpop band The Brilliant Things. According to Sterling, who was 16 years old when she wrote the song, wanted to express that "teenagers [can] feel just as much hurt as others". In a Wiwibloggs interview, she described the song as from the perspective of a character who took "risks that [they] really believed would pay off and [later] reflecting on the consequences of that gamble that went wrong in life or love". However, Sterling has also stated in other interviews that she believes the song's lyrics should be open to interpretation.
“Playing with Numbers” enters the record as 2015 single by Molly Sterling. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Playing, Numbers and single can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Playing with Numbers” 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.