Katrina and the Waves - Love Shine A Light

"Love Shine a Light" was the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 1997, performed by Katrina and the Waves for the United Kingdom, composed by Kimberley Rew. It is the group's biggest success since "Walking on Sunshine" 12 years earlier.

Rew composed the song following a request from the brother of Alex Cooper (the band's drummer) for an anthem for The Samaritans. The song was selected as the UK's Eurovision entry by public vote on 15 March 1997. It received 69,834 votes, 11,138 more than the second place song.

The contest was held on 3 May 1997 in the Point Theatre, Dublin. The song was awarded maximum points by ten countries, scoring 227 of a possible 288, the most points a Eurovision entry ever won until Ukraine's Ruslana broke the record in 2004. However, since Ukraine competed in a pool of 36 countries, wider than the 25 countries in 1997, Love Shine a Light still maintains a higher percentage of votes won. It won the third-highest ever percentage of total votes after United Kingdom's Save Your Kisses for Me in 1976 and Germany's Ein bißchen Frieden in 1982. When Alexander Rybak's "Fairytale" won for Norway in 2009, not only did he get the most points ever, 387 out of a possible 492, he also go the most number of 12s, 16 from 41 countries. Second placed Iceland were over 50 points behind. Strangely though the percentage of votes are virtually identical with "Love shine a light" getting 78.82% and "Fairyale" 78.66%.

Katrina Leskanich, lead singer of the band, 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.

The song was succeeded in 1998 as Contest winner by Dana International representing Israel performing Diva. This song was also performed as part of a medley in the introduction of the 50th anniversary show for the ESC in Copenhagen as well as the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2006, in Athens.

A remix of the song was performed during the UK selection process final of 2008, Eurovision: Your Decision.