ESC BRUSSELS 1987 (32ª)

Dates – Grand Final: Saturday, 09 May 1987 – 21:00 CEST
Host – Venue & Location: Palais de Centenaire (Brussels Exhibition Centre – Brussels Expo; Parc des Expositions de Bruxelles; Tentoonstellingspark van Brussel), Brussels, 🇧🇪 Belgium
Presenter (s): Viktor Lazlo
Musical Director: Jo Carlier
Director: Jacques Bourton
Executive Producer: Michel Gehu
Executive Supervisor: Frank Naef
Multicamera Director: Jacques Bourton
Host broadcaster: Radio-Télévision Belge de la Communauté Française (RTBF)
Opening Act:“Breathless” performed by Viktor Lazlo
Interval Act: Mark Grauwels
Participants – Number of entries: 22 [🇧🇪 Belgium (29ª), 🇩🇪 Germany (29ª), 🇨🇭 Switzerland (29ª), 🇬🇧 United Kindom (27ª), 🇪🇸 Spain (24ª), 🇱🇺 Luxembourg (28ª), 🇫🇮 Finland (23ª), 🇳🇴 Norway (24ª), 🇵🇹 Portugal (20ª), 🇦🇹 Austria (25ª), 🇸🇪 Sweden (25ª), 🇩🇰 Denmark (20ª), 🇹🇷 Turkey (10ª), 🇨🇾 Cyprus (7ª), 🇫🇷 France (28ª), 🇮🇪 Ireland (19ª), 🇮🇱 Israel (11ª), 🇮🇸 Iceland (2ª), 🇳🇱 The Netherlands (28ª), Yugoslavia (21ª), 🇬🇷 Greece (9ª), 🇮🇹 Italy (26ª)]
Debuting countries: —
Return: 🇬🇷 Greece (9ª), 🇮🇹 Italy (26ª)
Non-returning countries: —
Vote – Voting system: Each country awarded 12, 10, 8–1 point(s) to their 10 favourite songs.
Nil Points: 🇹🇷 Turkey (2ª)
Winning song: “Hold Me Now” – Johnny Logan – 🇮🇪 Ireland (3ª)

About. The 1987 Eurovision Song Contest was held in Brussels, Belgium. Viktor Laszlo was the host of the 32nd edution of the competition which was won by Ireland. Belgium had the honour of hosting the 1987 Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in the country’s history. The highest number of participants ever, 22, entered the contest in 1987. Greece and Italy returned to the contest after a year of absence. The 1986 contest was won by a Walloon entry, but in 1987 the Flemish broadcaster, BRT, was responsible for the Belgian entry. BRT also wanted to co-organise the contest, but the Walloon broadcaster, RTBF decided to organise the event on its own. The presenter of the 3-hour-show was the successful Belgian artist Viktor Laszlo who opened the contest presenting her latest song “Breathless”.

Johnny Logan makes history. The winner of the 1987 contest was Hold Me Now performed and written by Johnny Logan, who had already won in 1980 with “What’s Another Year” and had written the second-placed song in 1984 “Terminal 3” performed in Luxembourg by Linda Martin. Johnny is the only singer to date to win the contest twice as a singer.

Facts and figures. Germany came second this year with the song Lass die Sonne in dein Herz by the group Wind. For the group, it was the second silver ranking after being the runner up in 1985. The song still ranks as one of the best-known Eurovision hits in Denmark; Italy sent two internationally-known stars to Eurovision this year; Tozzi & Raf. Raf had written the worldwide hit “Self Control” three years earlier which was both a hit for him and for the cover-version by Laura Branigan; The UK scored its worst placing at the time, 13th, with the song “Only The Light” performed by Rikki.

o/r	country	Participant(s)	song – translatE – LANGUAGE	Points	rank
01	🇳🇴 Norway NRK	Kate Gulbrandsen	Mitt liv (My life) Norwegian	065	09
02	🇮🇱 Israel IBA	Lazy Bums (הבטלנים, HaBatlanim, Datner & Kushnir)	Shir habatlanim (שיר הבטלנים, The lazy bums song) Hebrew	073	08
03	🇦🇹 Austria ÖRF	Gary Lux	Nur noch gefühl (Only emotion) German	008	20
04	🇮🇸 Iceland RÚV	Halla Margrét	Hægt og hljótt (Slowly and quietly) Icedlandic	028	16
05	🇧🇪 Belgium BRT	Liliane Saint-Pierre	Soldiers of love Dutch^[a]	056	11
06	🇸🇪 Sweden SVT	Lotta Engberg	Boogaloo [Fyra bugg / Fyra bugg och en Coca Cola (Four chewing gums and a Coca Cola)] Swedish	050	12
07	🇮🇹 Italy RAI	Umberto Tozzi & Raf	Gente di mare (People of the sea) Italian	103	03
08	🇵🇹 Portugal RTP	Nevada	Neste barco à vela (In this sailing boat) Portuguese	015	18
09	🇪🇸 Spain TVE	Patricia Kraus	No estás sólo (You’re not alone) Spanish	010	19
10	🇹🇷 Turkey TRT	Seyyal Taner & Grup Locomotif	Şarkım sevgi üstüne (My song is about love) Turkish	000	22
11	🇬🇷 Greece ERT	Bang!	Stop! (Στοπ) Greek	064	10
12	🇳🇱 The Netherlands NOS	Marcha	Rechtop in de wind (Upright in the wind) Dutch	083	05
13	🇱🇺 Luxembourg CLT	Plastic Bertrand	Amour, amour (Love, love) French	004	21
14	🇬🇧 United Kindom BBC	Rikki	Only the light English	047	13
15	🇫🇷 France A2F	Christine Minier	Les mots d’amour n’ont pas de dimanche (The words of love don’t have a Sunday) French	044	14
16	🇩🇪 Germany ARD	Wind	Lass die sonne in dein herz (Let the sun into your heart) German	141	02
17	🇨🇾 Cyprus CyBC	Alexia (Αλέξια)	Aspro-mavro (Άσπρο-μαύρο, White black) Greek	080	07
18	🇫🇮 Finland YLE	Vicky Rosti & Boulevard	Sata salamaa (A hundred lightnings) Finnish	032	15
19	🇩🇰 Denmark DR	Anne-Catherine Herdorf & Bandjo	En lille melodi (A little tune) Danish	83	19
20	🇮🇪 Ireland RTÉ	Johnny Logan	Hold me now English	172	01
21	Yugoslavia JRT	Novi Fosili (Нови фосили)	Ja sam za ples (Ја сам за плес, I wanna dance) Serbo-Croatian^[a]	092	04
22	🇨🇭 Switzerland SSR SRG	Carol Rich	Moitiè, moitié (Half and half) French	026	17

Missed participation

• 🇸🇪 Sweden: “Fyra bugg och en Coca-Cola” / “Fyra bugg” ( “Four chewing gums and a Coca Cola”) (Swedish) – Lotta Engberg. Sweden selected an entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 1987 by holding a preselection show named Melodifestivalen 1987. Out of 1 502 submitted songs and 12 songs in the final, the entry “Fyra bugg och en Coca-Cola” was chosen. (“Four chewing gums (Bugg was a brand of chewing gum that was popular in Sweden in the 60’s-80’s) and a Coca Cola”), also called “Fyra bugg”, is a Swedish language song, written by Mikael Wendt and Christer Lundh. Swedish dansband and pop singer Lotta Engberg won the Swedish Melodifestivalen 1987 in Sweden with this song. The lyrics are about summer. As the songs title contained the trademark names Coca-Cola and the Swedish chewing gum Bugg, the European Broadcasting Union demanded that the lyrics would be changed before the Brussels final, so the song was renamed “Boogaloo”.

Participant map

Participating countries Countries that participated in the past but not in 1987

ESC 1987 Scoreboard Ι Detailed voting results:

The Eurovision Song Contest 1987 was the 32nd edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Brussels, Belgium, following the country’s victory at the 1986 contest with the song “J’aime la vie” by Sandra Kim. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Radio-télévision belge de la Communauté française (RTBF), the contest was held at the Centenary Palace on 9 May 1987 (also Europe Day) and was hosted by French-Belgian singer Viktor Lazlo.

Twenty-two countries took part in the contest with Greece and Italy returning to the competition after their absences the previous year. This set the record for the highest number of competing countries up until that point.

The winner was Ireland with the song “Hold Me Now” by Johnny Logan. Johnny Logan had also won the 1980 contest, and he remains the only performer to have won the Eurovision Song Contest twice.

The Centenary Palace of the Brussels Exhibition Centre, host venue of the 1987 contest

1.Location. The contest took place at the Brussels Exhibition Centre (Brussels Expo) in Brussels, Belgium, a set of exhibition halls built from 1930 on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau (Heysel Park) in Laeken (northern part of the City of Brussels) to celebrate the centenary of Belgian Independence.

The Centenary Palace (French: Palais du Centenaire, Dutch: Eeuwfeestpaleis), where the main stage was located, is one of the remaining buildings of the Brussels International Exposition of 1935. Currently, it is still being used for trade fairs, as well as concerts, usually for bigger acts and artists.

2.Format.

Host broadcaster. Sandra Kim’s Eurovision victory in 1986 occurred amidst a complex political situation in Belgium: starting in the 80s, the country transitioned from a central to a federal government model due to rising tensions between the two major linguistic regions of Belgium, Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia. Both regions had had independent broadcasters since 1960 (BRT in Flanders and RTBF in Wallonia) but had still agreed to jointly host the contest in the event of a Belgian victory. While the triumph of “J’aime la vie” in 1986 – an entry sent by French-speaking RTBF – reignited a sense of national union across all Belgian regions, the two regional broadcasters weren’t able to overcome their disagreements to allow for a joint hosting of the 1987 contest. BRT eventually withdrew from the project and RTBF organised the contest alone as host broadcaster. BRT remained in charge of the selection of the Belgian entry for the contest, as in all other odd-numbered years until 1993.

Host city. An expert committee designated the Royal Theatre of Antwerp as the ideal hosting venue, as both locations proposed by the Francophones (the Palais du Centenaire in Brussels and the Patinoire de Coronmeuse in Liege) would have required too much renovation work. Nevertheless, RTBF demanded that the contest be hosted in Brussels, Belgium’s capital city. On October 6th, 1986, 7 months before the contest, RTBF unilaterally announced that the Palais du Centenaire in Brussels would host Eurovision 1987. In the Flemish newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, BRT proposed instead to host Eurovision at the Cirque Royal, also located in Brussels, adding that RTBF would be solely in charge of organizing the contest if BRT’s counter-offer was not taken into consideration. However, on October 16th, 1986, RTBF moved forward and confirmed the Palais du Centenaire as the host venue of Eurovision 1987. The Flemish broadcaster was offended by the choice of Brussels as host city, and withdrew from the organization.

In her academic study “Which Belgium Won Eurovision? European Unity and Belgian Disunity” published in 2019, scholar Julie Kalman describes how, as a consequence, the opening of Eurovision 1987 mostly showed footage of Wallonia.

Budget. The necessary budget was so important that a new law had to be adopted, allowing the use of advertising to finance the Belgian public channels. This was the first time that sponsors helped to produce the contest and appeared on screen.

After the closing of the 1987 contest, BRT President Cas Goossens praised RTBF for a “perfect organization” while at the same time regretting that the two broadcasters weren’t able to collaborate. He added that the cost of hosting Eurovision would have been difficult to justify to the Flemish taxpayers.

2.1.Contest overview. The 1987 Eurovision was the biggest contest at that time, with 22 countries taking part. Only Malta, Monaco and Morocco failed to compete out of all the countries which had entered the contest in the past. Due to the number of countries, and the time it took for the contest to be held, the EBU set the limit of competing countries to 22. This became problematic over the next few years as new and returning nations indicated an interest in participating, but could not be accommodated.

Controversy erupted in Israel after their song was selected, “Shir Habatlanim” by the Lazy Bums. The comedic performance was criticised by the country’s culture minister, who threatened to resign should the duo proceed to Brussels. They went on to perform for Israel, placing eighth; however the culture minister’s threat was left unfulfilled.

The presenter was Viktor Lazlo who agreed to present the contest on the condition she was allowed to open with a song of her own, “Breathless”.

3.Participating countries. Each performance had a conductor who directed the orchestra.

🇳🇴 Norway – Terje Fjærn
🇮🇱 Israel – Kobi Oshrat
🇦🇹 Austria – Richard Oesterreicher
🇮🇸 Iceland – Hjálmar H. Ragnarsson
🇧🇪 Belgium – Freddy Sunder
🇸🇪 Sweden – Curt-Eric Holmquist
🇮🇹 Italy – Gianfranco Lombardi
🇵🇹 Portugal – Jaime Oliveira
🇪🇸 Spain – Eduardo Leiva
🇹🇷 Turkey – Garo Mafyan
🇬🇷 Greece – Yiorgos Niarchos
🇳🇱 The Netherlands – Rogier van Otterloo
🇱🇺 Luxembourg – Alec Mansion
🇬🇧 United Kindom – Ronnie Hazlehurst
🇫🇷 France – Jean-Claude Petit
🇩🇪 Germany – Laszlo Bencker
🇨🇾 Cyprus – Jo Carlier
🇫🇮 Finland – Ossi Runne
🇩🇰 Denmark – Henrik Krogsgaard
🇮🇪 Ireland – Noel Kelehan
Yugoslavia – Nikica Kalogjera
🇨🇭 Switzerland – no conductor

3.1.Returning artists.

Artist	Country	Previous year(s)
Gary Lux	🇦🇹 Austria	1983 (member of Westend), 1984 (as backing singer for Anita), 1985
Alexia	🇨🇾 Cyprus	1981 (member of Island)
Wind	🇩🇪 Germany	1985
Johnny Logan	🇮🇪 Ireland	1980

3.2.Participants and results.

3.3.All the national selections for Eurovision Song Contest 1987:

• National Selections in 1987:

COUNTRY	EVENT	WINNER
🇧🇪 Belgium	Eurosong ’87	Liliane Saint-Pierre – “Soldiers of Love”
🇩🇰 Denmark	Melodi Grand Prix 1987	Anne-Cathrine Herdorf (Anne-Cathrine Herdorf and Bandjo) – “En lille melodi“
🇫🇮 Finland	(Finnish Selection 1987)	Virve Rosti / Vicky Rosti and Boulevard – “Sata salamaa“
🇫🇷 France	(French Selection 1987)	Christine Minier – “Les mots d’amour n’ont pas de dimanche“
🇩🇪 Germany	Ein Lied für Brüssel	Wind – “Laß die Sonne in dein Herz“
🇬🇷 Greece	(Greek Selection 1987)	Bang! – “Stop” (Στοπ)
🇮🇸 Iceland	Söngvakeppni Sjónvarpsins 1987	Halla Margrét Árnadóttir – “Hægt og hljótt“
🇮🇪 Ireland	(Irish Selection 1987)	Johnny Logan – “Hold Me Now”
🇮🇱 Israel	Kdam Eurovision 1987	Natan Datner & Avi Kushnir / Datner and Kushnir – “Shir Habatlanim” (שיר הבטלנים)
🇳🇱 The Netherlands	Nationaal Songfestival 1987 (song selection) [b]	Marcha – “Rechtop in de wind“
🇳🇴 Norway	Melodi Grand Prix 1987	Kate Gulbrandsen – “Mitt liv“
🇵🇹 Portugal	Festival da Canção 1987	Nevada – “Neste barco à vela“
🇸🇪 Sweden	Melodifestival 1987	Lotta Engberg – “Boogaloo”
🇨🇭 Switzerland	Concours Eurovision 1987	Carol Rich – “Moitié, moitié“
🇹🇷 Turkey	Şarkı Yarışması 1987	Seyyal Taner & Grup Lokomotif / Seyyal Taner and Lokomotif – “Şarkım Sevgi Üstüne“
🇬🇧 United Kindom	A Song for Europe 1987	Rikki – “Only the Light”
Yugoslavia	Jugovizija 1987	Novi Fosili – “Ja sam za ples” (Ја сам за плес)

• Internal Selections in 1987:

🇦🇹 Austria	Gary Lux – “Nur noch Gefühl“
🇨🇾 Cyprus	Alexia – “Aspro mavro” (Άσπρο μαύρο)
🇮🇹 Italy	Umberto Tozzi and Raf – “Gente di mare“
🇱🇺 Luxembourg	Plastic Bertrand – “Amour, amour“
🇪🇸 Spain	Patricia Kraus – “No estás solo“

3.4.Connections:

4.Voting.

**Voting results**
		Total score
C o n t e s t a n t s	🇳🇴 Norway	65			4		7	10	7		3			4			4	7	3	5	3	2		6
	🇮🇱 Israel	73	2		1	5	6	4		10				3		4	10	8		7		5		8
	🇦🇹 Austria	8							1				7
	🇮🇸 Iceland	28	4				4				4		6					10
	🇧🇪 Belgium	56	5	2	3				6		7	4			5	8		4	5	3			4
	🇸🇪 Sweden	50		12		8	1		3	7		2					3		7		7
	🇮🇹 Italy	103		3	6	3	5	1		12	12	8			4	1		12	1	4		12	12	7
	🇵🇹 Portugal	15									8		5					2
	🇪🇸 Spain	10											10
	🇹🇷 Turkey	0
	🇬🇷 Greece	64				1	2	6	8					5	7	5	7		12		6		5
	🇳🇱 The Netherlands	83		5	2				10		5	7	3		8	3	12			2	2	6	8	10
	🇱🇺 Luxembourg	4								2						2
	🇬🇧 United Kindom	47		10	5		3	5		3		3			1				2	1	4	3	2	5
	🇫🇷 France	44	1			4			5				4	1	12			5				10		2
	🇩🇪 Germany	141	3	8	10	12	10	7	4	5	1	6		10	6	10	6		6	10	12	7	7	1
	🇨🇾 Cyprus	80	6			6		2					12	2		6	5	3		6	10	8	10	4
	🇫🇮 Finland	32	10					3		4	2		1	8	2			1					1
	🇩🇰 Denmark	83	7	6	7	7		8	2	1		1	8	6		7	8			8		4		3
	🇮🇪 Ireland	172	8	4	12		12	12	12	8	10	10		12	10	12	1	6	8	12	5		6	12
	Yugoslavia	92	12	7	8	10	8			6	6	12	2				2		10		8	1
	🇨🇭 Switzerland	26		1		2						5		7	3				4		1		3

4.1.12 points. Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:

N.	Contestant	Nation(s) giving 12 points
8	🇮🇪 Ireland	🇦🇹 Austria, 🇧🇪 Belgium, 🇫🇮 Finland, 🇮🇹 Italy, 🇳🇱 The Netherlands, 🇸🇪 Sweden, 🇨🇭 Switzerland, 🇬🇧 United Kindom
5	🇮🇹 Italy	🇩🇪 Germany, 🇮🇪 Ireland, 🇵🇹 Portugal, 🇪🇸 Spain, Yugoslavia
2	🇩🇪 Germany	🇩🇰 Denmark, 🇮🇸 Iceland
2	Yugoslavia	🇳🇴 Norway, 🇹🇷 Turkey
1	🇨🇾 Cyprus	🇬🇷 Greece
	🇫🇷 France	🇱🇺 Luxembourg
	🇬🇷 Greece	🇨🇾 Cyprus
	🇳🇱 The Netherlands	🇫🇷 France
	🇸🇪 Sweden	🇮🇱 Israel

4.2.Spokespersons. Each country announced their votes in the order of performance. The following is a list of spokespersons who announced the votes for their respective country.

🇳🇴 Norway – Sverre Christophersen
🇮🇱 Israel – Yitzhak Shim’oni
🇦🇹 Austria – Tilia Herold
🇮🇸 Iceland – Guðrún Skúladóttir
🇧🇪 Belgium – An Ploegaerts
🇸🇪 Sweden – Jan Ellerås
🇮🇹 Italy – Mariolina Cannuli
🇵🇹 Portugal – Ana Zanatti
🇪🇸 Spain – Matilde Jarrín
🇹🇷 Turkey – Canan Kumbasar
🇬🇷 Greece – Irini Gavala
🇳🇱 The Netherlands – Ralph Inbar
🇱🇺 Luxembourg – Frédérique Ries
🇬🇧 United Kindom – Colin Berry
🇫🇷 France – Lionel Cassan
🇩🇪 Germany – Gabi Schnelle
🇨🇾 Cyprus – Anna Partelidou
🇫🇮 Finland – Solveig Herlin^[
🇩🇰 Denmark – Bent Henius
🇮🇪 Ireland – Brendan Balfe
Yugoslavia – Ljiljana Tipsarević
🇨🇭 Switzerland – Michel Stocker

5.Broadcasts. National broadcasters were able to send a commentary team to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language.

**Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries**
Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	–
🇦🇹 Austria	FS1	Ernst Grissemann	^–
🇦🇹 Austria	Hitradio Ö3	Hans Leitinger
🇧🇪 Belgium	RTBF1	French: Claude Delacroix	^–
	BRT TV1	Dutch: Luc Appermont	^–
	RTBF La Première	French: Patrick Duhamel and Stéphane Dupont
	BRT Radio 2	Dutch: Rita Jaenen
🇨🇾 Cyprus	RIK	Fryni Papadopoulou	^–
🇨🇾 Cyprus	RIK Deftero	Pavlos Pavlou
🇩🇰 Denmark	DR TV	Jørgen de Mylius	^–
🇩🇰 Denmark	DR P3	Poul Birch Eriksen
🇫🇮 Finland	YLE TV1	Heikki Harma and Kari Lumikero	^–
🇫🇮 Finland	YLE 2-verkko	TBC
🇫🇷 France	Antenne 2	Patrick Simpson-Jones	^–
🇫🇷 France	France Inter	Julien Lepers
🇩🇪 Germany	Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen	Lotti Ohnesorge and Christoph Deumling	^–
🇩🇪 Germany	Deutschlandfunk/NDR Radio 2	Peter Urban
🇬🇷 Greece	ERT	Dafni Bokota	^–
🇬🇷 Greece	Proto Programma	Dimitris Konstantaras
🇮🇸 Iceland	Sjónvarpið	Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir	^–
🇮🇪 Ireland	RTÉ 1	Marty Whelan	^–
🇮🇪 Ireland	RTÉ Radio 1	Larry Gogan
🇮🇱 Israel	Israeli Television	No commentator
🇮🇱 Israel	Reshet Gimel	Yigal Ravid
🇮🇹 Italy	Rai Due	Rosanna Vaudetti	^–
🇮🇹 Italy	Rai Radio 2	Antonio De Robertis
🇱🇺 Luxembourg	RTL Télévision	Valérie Sarn	^–
	RTL plus	TBC
	RTL	André Torrent
🇳🇱 The Netherlands	Nederland 1	Willem van Beusekom	^–
🇳🇱 The Netherlands	Radio 2	Rudi Carrell
🇳🇴 Norway	NRK	John Andreassen and Tor Paulsen	^–
🇳🇴 Norway	NRK P2	Roald Øyen
🇵🇹 Portugal	RTP1	Maria Margarida Gaspar	^–
🇪🇸 Spain	TVE 2	Beatriz Pécker	^–
🇸🇪 Sweden	TV1	Fredrik Belfrage	^–
🇸🇪 Sweden	SR P3	Jacob Dahlin	^–
🇨🇭 Switzerland	TV DRS	German: Bernard Thurnheer
	TSR	French: Serge Moisson
	TSI	Italian: Wilma Gilardi
🇹🇷 Turkey	TV1	Gülgün Baysal	^–
🇬🇧 United Kindom	BBC1	Terry Wogan	–
🇬🇧 United Kindom	BBC Radio 2	Ray Moore	^–
Yugoslavia	TVB 1, TVZ 1	Serbo-Croatian: Ksenija Urličić	^–
	TVL 1	Slovene: Miša Molk
	Radio Val 202	Slovene: Marjeta Keršič Svetel

**Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries**
Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)
🇦🇺 Australia	SBS TV	Unknown
🇭🇺 Hungary	MTV1	István Vágó
🇵🇱 Poland	TP1	Bogusław Brelik

6.Possible Soviet Union participation. In 2009, Eduard Fomin, a former employee of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR, revealed that in 1987, Georgiy Veselov, the Minister of Education for the Soviet Union, brought forward the idea of a participation of the Soviet Union at the Eurovision Song Contest due to the number of political reforms made by the Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev during the late 1980s. The idea was mainly a political one, with the thought that a win in the contest for the Soviet Union would have an impact on the relationships between the Soviet Union and the capitalist countries of the west. Valery Leontyev was suggested as a name for the Soviet Union’s first participation; however, Veselov’s ideas were not shared by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, or by Gorbachev himself, believing it to be too radical a step to take, and so no Soviet participation was ever made.^[41] Furthermore, its broadcaster, Soviet Central Television, was not a member of the European Broadcasting Union (a prerequisite for participation), so the country would not have been able to participate in the first place. Ten former republics of the Soviet Union would later compete in the contest on their own in the 1990s and 2000s: Russia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, with five of the countries going on to win the contest.

7.Notes.

[a] Contains some phrases in English
[b] Marcha was internally selected to represent Netherlands at Eurovision 1987. The song “Rechtop In De Wind” that Marcha performed at Eurovision was selected through Nationaal Songfestival 1987 with six songs.

8.Trivial / Fun facts.

Italy sent two internationally known stars to Eurovision this year: Umberto Tozzi & Raf.
Raf had written the worldwide hit Self Control three years earlier which was both a hit for him and in a cover-version by Laura Branigan.
Although Eurovision statistics show that most male duos do not do well, Italy finished in third place in 1987.

← Eurovision Song Contest 1986 • Eurovision Song Contest 1987 • Eurovision Song Contest 1988 →
Countries (in order of appearance)
Final	Norway ⦁ Israel ⦁ Austria ⦁ Iceland ⦁ Belgium ⦁ Sweden ⦁ Italy ⦁ Portugal ⦁ Spain ⦁ Turkey • Greece ⦁ The Netherlands ⦁ Luxembourg ⦁ United Kingdom • France • Germany ⦁ Cyprus ⦁ Finland ⦁ Denmark ⦁ Ireland (winner) • Yugoslavia ⦁ Switzerland
Artists (in order of appearance)
Final	Kate Gulbrandsen ⦁ Datner and Kushnir ⦁ Gary Lux ⦁ Halla Margrét ⦁ Liliane Saint-Pierre ⦁ Lotta Engberg ⦁ Umberto Tozzi and Raf ⦁ Nevada ⦁ Patricia Kraus ⦁ Seyyal Taner and Lokomotif ⦁ Bang • Marcha ⦁ Plastic Bertrand ⦁ Rikki ⦁ Christine Minier • Wind ⦁ Alexia ⦁ Vicky Rosti and Boulevard • Anne-Cathrine Herdorf and Bandjo ⦁ Johnny Logan (winner) ⦁ Novi fosili ⦁ Carol Rich
Songs (in order of appearance)
Final	“Mitt liv” ⦁ “Shir Habatlanim” (שיר הבטלנים) ⦁ “Nur noch Gefühl” ⦁ “Hægt og hljótt” ⦁ “Soldiers of Love” ⦁ “Boogaloo” ⦁ “Gente di mare” ⦁ “Neste barco à vela” ⦁ “No estás solo” ⦁ “Şarkım Sevgi Üstüne” ⦁ “Stop” (Στοπ) • “Rechtop in de wind” ⦁ “Amour, amour” ⦁ “Only the Light” ⦁ “Les mots d’amour n’ont pas de dimanche” • “Laß die Sonne in dein Herz” • “Aspro mavro” (Άσπρο μαύρο) • “Sata salamaa” • “En lille melodi” • “Hold Me Now” (winner) • “Ja sam za ples” (Ја сам за плес) ⦁ “Moitié, moitié”
Non-participating entries: Sweden: Lotta Engberg – “Fyra bugg och en Coca-Cola” / “Fyra bugg” ( “Four chewing gums and a Coca Cola”)