Song of the Day – Liliane Saint-Pierre had the hard task to represent Belgium on home ground in the Eurovision Song Contest 1987. Saint-Pierre won the national final organized by the Flemish broadcaster, while the actual contest was organized by the Wallon broadcaster (Sandra Kim having been selected by them). Liliane is Flemish and presented her entry “Soldiers of Love” mostly in Dutch. Her last name is a stage name she adopted while trying to break through in France. She started performing at the age of 13 and had a big hit with “We gotta stop” sung in Dutch.
Her self-penned song “Soldiers of Love” is a plea for world peace. She calls for Soldiers of love to fight against the violence in the world as: “another day, another pain. Newspapers bring us tears and pain”. Saint-Pierre performed the driving 80s rock song enthusiastically. Except for the title which is repeated in the chorus, only one line of the song was actually in English. In the end she came 11th with 56 points.
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It is an ok song in the context of the 80′s a bit repetitive though.
However,i prefer this “Soldier of Love tbh!
I agree. Belgium 1987 has a very distinctive 80s sound but unfortunately, it is a middling effort at best.
All in all, 1987 was a very average year with many bland, irrelevant and mediocre songs imo. I only love the Icelandic song and like the Spanish and Italian efforts. Switzerland sent one of the most annoying songs ever.
P.S. Sade, the high priestess of the 80s.
Gosh, I do not know how many gin and tonics I drank while listening to her songs in those places full of chrome that were hip back then.
Ha,ha!Cheers!:) I have to go through some of the songs of that year because i only know the Greek,the Cypriot and the winning song .And now the Belgian one.I will listen to the 3 songs you mention in your post.
Please let me know what you think of the 3 I like.
So,my ranking goes like that: 1.Iceland.Nice ballad and i really like the lyrics.2.Italy.3.France and 4.Yugoslavia.I didn’t really like this one.
So,my favorites are Iceland and Cyprus for now.
“Moitie, Moitie”, another song on my hate list.
It is very sad that almost everything about the Belgian contest was perfect, apart from the competing songs. Even the best songs are only mediocre at best.
But I loved the stage and of course Viktor Lazlo and her Thierry Mugler dresses.
“Soldiers of love” is actually a gay anthem for the Belgian “holebi” community.
“It is very sad that almost everything about the Belgian contest was perfect, apart from the competing songs. ”
I agree, very sad indeed. Plus Viktor Lazlo was one of the most classy hosts ever (just put her next to the Moscow semi-final hosts …). And if I remember correctly, was have already discussed her fantastic earrings before.
* we have …
i know we did too :p
It starts off good and is a rather cool song that unfortunately gets boring after a while. Very 80′s and I like these drums. 1987 is the second weakest Eurovision ever imo, after 1982. Finland is in my top and I guess I’ll put Yugoslavia and Italy after “Sata salamaa”. I do like “Hold me now” in studio version, but it become quite lame live. The same goes for Norway.
Oh yes, I forgot Yugoslavia … I like that one too as I mentioned the other day. 8/12
One of the greatest music videos ever, too.
Sweet song
And as for my own country: a rather strong MF that year imo, with a couple of songs that has grown to be real classics, especially Arja Saijonmaa’s “Högt över havet” and Lena Philipsson’s “Dansa i neon”. The winning song, though, was a boring and cowardly choice, an uninspired and conventional Svensktoppen song that had to change lyrics because it was mentioning Coca-Cola, and trademark mentioning is forbidden (did Plumbo know that this year?).
The most memorable thing about this song is that Carl Bildt, the future Prime Minister of Sweden was persuaded to make a cover of that song.
Lena is my favorite that yer but I really liked Arja’s song (though Arja is not a great singer)… I like the 87 MF edition to be fair and “Boogaloo” was fine in MF but indeed came sort of cold on the esc stage
I have Arja in the top, followed by Cyndee Peters, Lena Ph and then Sound of Music.
No, Arja is not a great singer but that doesn’t matter because it’s her strong and dramatic Finnish-Swedish accent that gives all her songs their flavour.
As many 80s editions, this one really sucks imo (not as much as 86 but…) and therefore I have Belgium in my top 5 along with Finland, Turkey and Uk in the “best” entries of the year, but definitely Italy was the best one no doubts… The song i fine but has cheesy lyrics and over the top performance, but all in all a decent effort I guess
What a stunningly talented dancer she was. Bleeeeech.
What about those two talented “”"guitar players”"”?
Belgium 87 was so much better than Belgium 86.
Another J. Logan winning contest=(WHY) I disliked his 1980 song but this was even worse and then came the 92 song( even though he did’nt sing it )Why me,I ask WHY YOU