Every year when the Eurovision Song Contest draws near, the Dutch audience is reminded of the last victory by the Netherlands. It gets more depressing every year: the last victory took place in 1975, more than 30 years ago. After 'La La La' (Spain, 1969) and 'Boom bang-a-bang' (UK, 1969) this wan another example of a Eurovision winner with a nonsensical title.The song, performed entirely in English, was an up-tempo ode to positive thought. Almost immediately, the song's lyrics became a source of ridicule, particularly in the UK, because the word "dong" is slang for penis. And the fact that the lyric includes a line that goes 'When you walk along with your ding dang dong' didn't help, either. This did not stop the song from hitting number 13 in the UK singles chart. In the Netherlands, the single peaked at number 3.
My collection: 7" single no. 3388
Found: Geest, Den Haag, 2003
Cost: 1 euro
Tracks: 'Ding-a-dong' / 'The circus show'
Download: here
I actually liked this :)
ReplyDeleteThis must be the dutch release, as the UK version had a track called "let me in" on the B-side.
Like Brian above I'm not sure why the vast majority of songs in Eurovision are sung in English nowadays, especially when it appears we are disliked so much by the rest of Europe?