Fly on the Wings of Love



"Fly on the Wings of Love" is a song by the Olsen Brothers, which was the winner of Eurovision Song Contest 2000, performed for Denmark, singing in English.

The song was performed fourteenth on the night, following Spain's Serafín Zubiri with "Colgado de un sueño" and preceding Germany's Stefan Raab with "Wadde hadde dudde da?". At the close of voting, it had received 195 points, placing first in a field of 24.

Background
"Fly on the Wings of Love" is a love ballad, with the singers describing the beauty of a woman. Unusual for any pop song (let alone one in the Contest), its lyrics strongly imply that this is a beauty which has improved with age - a theme made more explicit in the Danish original "Smuk som et stjerneskud" ("Beautiful as a shooting star").

The song was not expected to score highly, as it was an old-fashioned ballad and performed by two of the oldest performers to enter the Contest. In spite of this, it led the voting from start to finish (a feat not achieved since ABBA won in 1974) and became a great favourite among fans of the Contest, being named one of the best entries at the Congratulations special in late 2005. The brothers in fact performed part of the song onstage and were greeted with rapturous applause (perhaps due to the special's location in Copenhagen). Renārs Kaupers, hosting the show, made several references to "being beaten by a pair of Danish brothers" (which his band Brainstorm was).

The song is also memorable for the vocoding effects given to the voice during the final chorus, which allow it to sound something like a robot. These effects were the subject of a protest by the Russian delegation, however they were not found to be against the rules and the result stood.

The song was succeeded in 2001 as winner by Tanel Padar and Dave Benton representing Estonia with "Everybody".

It was succeeded as Danish representative at the 2001 contest by Rollo & King with "Never Ever Let You Go". The Olsen Brothers have most recently performed "Fly On The Wings Of Love" at the Romanian national Final for the Eurovision Song Contest 2010, on 6 March.

International success
The Olsen Brothers were afforded an international hit with "Fly on the Wings of Love", most notably in Sweden, the Eurovision 2000 host nation, where "Fly on the Wings of Love" reached #1. In the Olsen Brothers' native Denmark, their native language rendering "Smuk som et stjerneskud" afforded them a #1 hit spending three months in the Top Ten.

Cover versions
"Fly on the Wings of Love" has been covered by several eurodance acts.
 * In 2000 Danish producer Holger Lagerfeldt released a cover version under the name DJ Cookie with vocals by Linda Andrews.
 * In 2002 German trance group Topmodelz consisting of Pulsedriver and SveN-R-G vs. Bass-T released a cover version on Aqualoop Records.
 * In May 2003 a cover version was released by Spanish dance group XTM & DJ Chucky featuring vocals by Annia (real name Eva Martí). It was very popular at nightclubs in Europe, and the single peaked at number one in Ireland. The song also charted well in the United Kingdom, where it reached #8 on the UK Singles Chart, spending eight weeks in the top 10 and nineteen in the top 75 of the chart. It also reached #31 on the Dutch Mega Single Top 100 in the Netherlands.