Love Shine a Light
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"Love Shine a Light" is a song by British rock band Katrina and the Waves written by Kimberley Rew. It Template:Esccnty in the Eurovision Song Contest 1997 held in Dublin, resulting in the country's fifth and most recent win at the contest. It was released as a single on 28 April 1997 and later included on the band's ninth studio album, Walk on Water (1997), serving as the album's lead single.
The song was the group's biggest success since their 1985 hit "Walking on Sunshine". It peaked within the top five of the charts in Austria, Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. In 2022, it was named the best UK Eurovision entry by The Daily Telegraph.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Background
Composition and Eurovision selection
The song was composed by the group's guitarist and regular songwriter Kimberley Rew following a request from the brother of the group's drummer Alex Cooper for an anthem for Samaritans in recognition of the thirtieth anniversary of the Swindon branch of that organization – Cooper's brother being a member of that branch. In a 1997 interview Katrina and the Waves lead vocalist Katrina Leskanich indicated that it was members of the Samaritans who opined that "Love Shine a Light" "was the type of song which would win the Eurovision Song Contest and [so] at the last minute, [Katrina and the Waves] submitted the song with our £250 [entrance fee]"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> for consideration to vie in the Template:Esccnty, the national preselection round organised by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to select its song and performer for the Template:Escyr of the Eurovision Song Contest.
It was also reported that Carmina Cooper, the manager of Katrina and the Waves and Alex Cooper's wife, met up with BBC Radio Cambridgeshire's breakfast presenter (and Head of Music) Dan Chisholm to play the track for him: Chisholm's response was to urge that the number be entered in the Great British Song Contest, and after affording "Love Shine a Light" its radio airplay debut, Chisholm declared it "the song which will win this year's Eurovision Song Contest".
In a 2010 interview Leskanich would state that Great British Song Contest executive producer Jonathan King had in fact initiated Katrina and the Waves involvement in the Great British Contest as he had contacted Leskanich to ask if her group had a song which might be a suitable contender to vie for the UK entrant at Eurovision 1997. Leskanich would paraphrase her response to King as being: "Yes, we have this song called 'Love Shine A Light' which we’ve never put on a record because it's too cheesy, too ABBA, too Eurovision, so it would be perfect for you."<ref name="Metro">Template:Cite web</ref>
Leskanich stated in 2010 that the original plan was that an act other than Katrina and the Waves would be found to perform "Love Shine a Light" for Eurovision consideration but that Warner Bros. Records executive Steve Allan – who Leskanich describes as "a big Eurovision fan...it’s always been his dream to win it" – said: "Look, you guys have a name, we can still do business in Europe. All you need is a hit song, and we want you to do it. And if you do do it we’ll give you a record deal"; adds Leskanich: "So we couldn’t say no." Leskanich would also state that Kimberley Rew had said of Katrina and the Waves pursuing the Eurovision title with his composition: "I’m not having anything to do with it".<ref name="Metro"/> The 9 March 1997 broadcast of the Great British Song Contest final featured a taped interview with Rew, in which he described Eurovision as "one of those great institutions of life"; he also accompanied Leskanich onstage to be congratulated for "Love Shine a Light"'s being announced as the Template:Esccnty for Eurovision 1997.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, he did not perform on stage for this appearance or the Eurovision final held on 3 May 1997.
In a 2020 interview, Leskanich revealed that she was asked if she could "try and talk like an English person" as some people were not happy with the UK being represented at the Eurovision Song Contest by an American artist.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Leskanich had moved to the UK in 1976, at the age of 16, and had lived in the UK for more than two decades by the time of her Eurovision appearance.
One of eight songs aired in the Great British Song Contest semi-final broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on 7 February 1997, "Love Shine a Light" was one of four songs advanced by televote to the Great British Song Contest final. The Great British Song Contest final was a live performance show broadcast by BBC TV on 9 March 1997, at the conclusion of which "Love Shine a Light" was announced as the 1997 UK entrant in Eurovision, the song having received 69,834 televotes – 11,138 more than the second-place finisher.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Eurovision performance
On 3 May 1997, the Eurovision Song Contest was held at the Point Theatre in Dublin hosted by Template:Lang (RTÉ), and broadcast live throughout the continent. Katrina and the Waves performed "Love Shine a Light" twenty-fourth in a field of twenty-five songs being preceded by the Template:Esccnty entry "Probudi me" and followed with the Template:Esccnty entry "Minn hinsti dans".<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref>
Leskanich would later state she'd supplied her own outfit for her performance on Eurovision: "the boys [ie. the Waves] were getting beautiful suits made by William Hunt and my outfit was an afterthought. They came [in] with five different designers and every single outfit made me look like a clown or a chair cover...I ended up wearing this green blouse I’d been wearing all week that I’d bought in the Cambridge market for £3 [with] a [dark velvet] jacket that my sister had sent me, which was a Donna Karan second and it only had one shoulder pad. So while I was doing the song, I had to remember to lift my left shoulder slightly to even it out with the other".<ref name="Metro"/> She also wore black leather trousers and black high-heeled boots.
The Eurovision performance of "Love Shine a Light" was simply staged with Leskanich singing center stage fronting background vocalists Beverley Skeete and Miriam Stockley: Skeete and Stockley, respectively dark-haired and blonde and clad in long dark dresses, also provided accompaniment with tambourines and handclaps. Two of Leskanich's co-members in Katrina and the Waves: drummer, Alex Cooper, and bassist, Vince de la Cruz (on this occasion playing guitar), were positioned towards the right side of the stage, while Phil Nicholl played bass stage left.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Phil Nicholl was not a permanent member of Katrina and the Waves being a substitute for the group's regular guitarist – and the song's composer – Kimberley Rew, who Leskanich would later state had disassociated himself from the group's participating with his song in Eurovision. Don Airey, who played as a session musician on the single recording of the song, arranged and conducted the live version for Katrina & The Waves. He added strings, brass and a vibrato flute, giving the song a more anthemic feel.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Eurovision scoring
In a pre-performance interview on the night of the Eurovision finale Leskanich had stated that Katrina and the Waves winning Eurovision was "more than a dream – it's probably going to be a reality. I mean we wouldn't come here unless we were intending to win...For Eurovision [success] you need a song with a universal message, lighters in the air, Coca-Cola, heartwarming positive 'all-unite' [message]...[Our] song has a universality about it that unites everyone and I think people are looking for that message in Eurovision...they want something uplifting and positive, and I think once in a while a song comes along that says Eurovision and I think that's what 'Love Shine a Light' says and I'm just lucky that I'm the one that gets to sing it."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
"Love Shine a Light" did indeed win Eurovision 1997 easily: with its first 12-point score being awarded by Austria the fourth reporting jury "Love Shine a Light" assumed permanent possession of first place on the scoreboard with its final vote tally an unprecedented 227 points besting the second-place entrant, the entrant for Template:Esccnty, "Mysterious Woman", by 70 points. The final vote tally for "Love Shine a Light" set a record unsurpassed until Template:Escyr, when the introduction of the semi-final greatly expanded the number of countries voting in the final (indeed, entire top three polled more than 227 points that year). It also received the maximum 12 points from ten countries, a feat not matched until Template:Escyr and not beaten until Template:Escyr.
By a more directly comparable measure, "Love Shine a Light" received an average of 9.458 points per country or 78.82% of total votes available, the third-highest in the history of the present voting system, behind only "Save Your Kisses for Me" by Brotherhood of Man in Template:Escyr (9.647 points per jury, 80.39% of available points) and "Ein bißchen Frieden" by Nicole in Template:Escyr (9.470 votes per jury, 78.91% of available points). Furthermore, the song received maximum points from ten of twenty-four countries (41.7%), the fourth highest of all time behind "Euphoria" by Loreen in Template:Escyr (which received 12 points from eighteen of forty-one countries, or 43.9%), "Non ho l'età" by Gigliola Cinquetti in Template:Escyr (receiving the then-maximum 5 points from eight of fifteen countries, or 53.3%) and "Ein bißchen Frieden" in 1982 (12 points from nine of seventeen countries, or 52.9%).
Katrina Leskanich commented that it was the second landslide of the week – the Labour Party led by Tony Blair had won the UK general election held two days earlier, on 1 May 1997.
Aftermath
In a 2009 interview Leskanich restated her opinion of "Love Shine a Light": "It was such a feel-good, lighters-in-the-air, cheesy number.", while adding: "Our song was quickly forgotten because we didn't have any sensational gimmick like Bucks Fizz". Leskanich also stated that Katrina and the Waves Eurovision victory boosted the group's profile on the European cabaret circuit at the expense of their rock band credibility which heavily factored into the band's 1999 breakup.<ref name="Metro"/>
On 22 October 2005, Leskanich co-hosted the Eurovision fiftieth anniversary competition Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest, held in Copenhagen, alongside Renārs Kaupers and sang her winning song in the opening sequence of the show with flag holders of all the nations who ever participated in Eurovision.<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref> The hosts of the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 –Sakis Rouvas and Maria Menounos– closed the opening act of its semi-final singing the song.<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref> A remix of the song was performed during the UK selection process final of 2008, Template:Esccnty. In 2009, Leskanich performed it with the Dutch SuperVoices made up of 2000 Dutch choir singers. She also performed the song in UK's Eurovision selection process Template:Esccnty aired on BBC Four in 2016.
On 15 December 2019, Leskanich performed the song during Het Grote Songfestivalfeest, a Dutch live television concert programme starring artists of the Eurovision Song Contest as a prelude to the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 that had been scheduled to be held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands in May 2020. Following the 2020 contest's cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the contest organisers subsequently organised the replacement show Eurovision: Europe Shine a Light, whose title was inspired by the song.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The song itself was performed during the show as an orchestral rendition by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and again near the end of the show by all the artists set to take part in the cancelled contest (with the exception of Hooverphonic from Belgium), with Leskanich finishing.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Critical reception
British magazine Music Week rated "Love Shine a Light" three out of five, writing, "Though perfectly suited for Eurovision with its universal, everyone-come-together message, this anthemic-sounding song will require a decent competition performance to win over record buyers if it is to do anything chartwise."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Track listings
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- UK CD1<ref name="ukcd1">Template:Cite AV media notes</ref>
- "Love Shine a Light" (radio version) – 2:52
- "Love Shine a Light" (unplugged version) – 2:51
- "Spiderman" – 3:12
- UK CD2 and Australian CD single<ref>Template:Cite AV media notes</ref>
- "Love Shine a Light" (radio version) – 2:51
- "Spiderman" – 3:11
- "Love Shine a Light" (Xenomania club mix) – 7:09
- UK cassette single<ref>Template:Cite AV media notes</ref>
- "Love Shine a Light" (radio version) – 2:52
- "Spiderman" – 3:12
- European CD single<ref>Template:Cite AV media notes</ref>
- "Love Shine a Light" (radio version) – 2:52
- "Love Shine a Light" (unplugged version) – 2:51
Charts
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Weekly charts
| Chart (1997) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Europe (Eurochart Hot 100)<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | 5 |
| Iceland (Íslenski Listinn Topp 40)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> | 19 |
| Israel (Israeli Singles Chart)<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | 1 |
| Chart (2020) | Peak position |
|---|
Year-end charts
| Chart (1997) | Position |
|---|---|
| Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 27 |
| Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 40 |
| Europe (Eurochart Hot 100)<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | 64 |
| Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 40 |
| Netherlands (Single Top 100)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 65 |
| Sweden (Topplistan)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 53 |
| UK Singles (OCC)<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 73 |
Certifications
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Legacy
- On the 1997 album Ett hus med många rum Kikki Danielssons orkester, featuring Kikki Danielsson on lead vocals, covered the song with lyrics in Swedish by Christer Lundh and Mikael Wendt, as Låt ett ljus få brinna (translated "Let a candle burn").<ref>Information at Svensk mediedatabas</ref>
- Heidi Kyrö recorded the song in 1998, the Finnish version of the name "Päivänvaloon".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Template:Ill recorded the song as "Liefde brengt licht" for his 2014 album release 12 points which comprised Flemish renderings of Eurovision winners.
- The Irish singer Lee Matthews released it as a charity single on 23 May 2014 with proceeds going to the Irish charity Join Our Boys Trust, a charity for those suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The single charted at number 68 in the Irish Pop Charts.Template:Citation needed
References
External links
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Template:Katrina and the Waves Template:Eurovision Song Contest 1997 Template:United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest Template:List of Eurovision Song Contest winners Template:Authority control