1999 Jerusalem - Number 10 - Vanessa Chinitor - "Like The Wind"
Remarkably, staying in Jerusalem. It feels like for the past two years, there have been many more songs outside the actual contest than inside.
Like the Wind is a waltz about the erosive forces of nature. It's a geography lesson. By the time the key change hits, the metaphor is apparent. Vanessa is telling us to be like the wind. Eternal, unstoppable. Be the force of nature you truly are. It's almost as unsubtle as Germany's entry.
What sets it apart from that, is the gentle fairground waltziness. The winds here are gentle gusts swirling around your feet and whipping up the leaves at best. No hurricanes or tropical storms. Perhaps an autumnal gust at most. Be an unstoppable force of nature, but be gentle and kind of cute. You may grind down mountains, but make sure you do so in an endearing and elegant manner.
Vanessa won the Belgian national final Eurosong '99 easily. She got maximum points from the juries (two of them), from the public televote and was in equal first with the results of the two Radio polls that were also run. There were some more modern dance tracks in the final, so clearly the whole of Belgium still want traditional and safe music. The country wasn't ready to experiment as a whole yet.
In Jerusalem, Vanessa drew the death slot and went on second. Nevertheless, she still managed to get 38 points which this year were good enough for 12th place. The point distribution was skewed with lots of songs clustered at the bottom with fewer than 40 points. Belgium turned out to be the best of this group.
Vanessa had one more go at qualifying for Eurovision in 2006. Unfortunately this ended in a last place finish in the preliminary heats.
However, Like the Wind managed to do exceptionally well in the Flemish Ultratop top 50 and she continued to release Dutch language music for the next six years. By 2006 her music career was slowing down. She had one more album out in 2010.
