This 1970 Golden Earring hit - Back Home - did better on the Dutch charts than Radar Love

[highplainsdem]

Last edited Wed Jun 14, 2023, 12:43 PM - Edit history (1)

5 weeks at #1, compared to 4 weeks for Radar Love when that was released three years later.

19 weeks total on the charts, compared to 11 weeks for Radar Love.

The Radar Love single still might have sold more copies in a shorter time. And while both singles were released weeks before the upcoming albums, fans who were thinking about waiting for the album had a bit shorter wait for Moontan after Radar Love was released, so that might've affected the single's sales.

Still, Back Home was a huge hit for the band, and a classic in the Netherlands.

They also made a promotional film on the dunes near The Hague that summer, but by the time that aired on the second episode of TopPop, on 9/29/1970, the song had already topped the charts for a month.

Golden Earring had already done some American tours by then, and their Dutch fans must've loved hearing the band would rather be home in the Netherlands. All the members of Earring were always open about getting homesick while on tour. It was probably the main reason they never relocated to the US, though they had discussed it at times. George Kooymans (who wrote all their hits by himself during the period this was recorded) had said in one documentary that he could get homesick just walking down the street.

They continued doing the song throughout their career. It wasn't on the setlist for their very last show in late 2019. But here's a video from 2015, at the Ziggo Dome:

And a cover of the song a couple of weeks ago at the Ribs & Blues festival in Raalte by the Anniversary Band - musicians who got together for the festival's 25th anniversary - backing Dion Legebeke of the hard rock band The Damned Few:

And see reply 2 for video of Golden Earring joined by two other bands to close a 2005 music festival with this song.

[quaint]

1. That was great. The Anniversary Band, too.

[highplainsdem]

2. Thanks! I just found a video of Earring with two other bands, doing that song

to close a 2005 music festival on the beach near The Hague (Beatstad, which started that year, with 40,000 tickets sold out, and became one of the largest festivals in the Netherlands). The guys in the Earring were joined by the Dutch band Di-Rect - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Di-rect - and the American band Kane - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kane_(American_band) - led by actor Christian Kane - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Kane . Casper Roos, who maintains a large fan site, was really excited about it: https://casperroos.nl/beatstad2005.html .

[quaint]

3. Outstanding

[highplainsdem]

4. Again, thanks! Btw, the album that was on, Golden Earring

(they'd shortened their name to that), spent 31 weeks on the charts, and 6 weeks at #1.

The B side of that single was another track from the album, again written by George, but unlike with Back Home, where Barry had the lead vocal, George sang this one.

[highplainsdem]

5. That "31 weeks on the charts" was a typo - not mine, but apparently one by

Earring fan Casper Roos reversing the more likely figure of 13 weeks on the charts for this album that I found on the main site I check for Dutch chart info. That other site also said the album was #1 for five weeks, not six.

Still a better chart performance than Moontan, the 1973 album with Radar Live. That was #1 for only one week, and on the charts only 11 weeks.

Btw, Earring fans usually call this eponymous album the "Wall of Dolls" album, for the cover art you see on that last video. There's also a song called Wall Of Dolls on the album, one of the weaker tracks, written by Rinus and Barry.

I ran across another 1970 video of Back Home, a very weird video. I haven't been able to find any information about which TV show this was broadcast on. This particular YouTube upload just calls it "Oromo video from one of their biggest hits" - but there was no show called Oromo. Other YT uploads of the same music video show graphics from 192TV, but that's just a channel for old videos that wasn't launched till 2010.

So this one's mysterious as well as odd. I can't recall any other music video that had people wrapped in aluminum foil. This also has Barry dancing with a puppy.

[quaint]

6. 13 weeks is still impressive.

[highplainsdem]

7. It was an impressive album, a favorite with their longtime Dutch fans. And

though it was their 6th album, the guys were still in their early 20s.

Some interesting reviews of the album from prog-rock fans at Progarchives.com:

http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=21487


At AllMusic, the user ratings gave the album 4 out of 5 stars. The site's official review gave it only 2-1/2 stars, but the text of the review was much more positive:

https://www.allmusic.com/album/golden-earring-mw0000348994

Golden Earring found the titular Dutch quartet forging the unique style that would later pay off in successful albums like Moontan and Cut. At this point, the group's sound is best described as post-psychedelic FM rock with a pronounced hard rock element (strong, gutsy guitar riffs about on this record -- just check out "The Loner" or "Back Home" ). A lot of the songs have the atmosphere and elaborate arrangements associated with prog rock, but the group keeps the arrangements and the running times tight (the album's lengthiest song is just a little over six minutes). The most overtly artsy track on the album is "Big Tree, Blue Sea," an energetic and complex rock tune that includes Jethro Tull-style flute and packs a dizzying array of tempo and stylistic changes into a tune only half as long as the average prog tune. Other highlights on Golden Earring include "This Is the Time of the Year," a song whose effect arrangement juxtaposes quiet verses with spare instrumentation with dramatic chorus powered by a powerful guitar riff and "Back Home," a solid example of the kind of good-time rocker that would dominate Golden Earring's late-'70s albums. The big problem for the group at this juncture is the lyrics: "I'm Gonna Send My Pigeons to the Sky" is an earnest but muddled stab at protest music whose lyrics fail to say much of anything and the powerful riffing of "The Loner" is undone by cartoonish, melodramatic lyrics. However, the strong music and the band's tight musicianship make up for this problem and Golden Earring remains a tight, tuneful effort that is well worth a listen for Golden Earring's fans.

Barry Hay was the only band member for whom English was his first language. The others always seemed to speak adequate English, as most Dutch people do, but George was always writing the lyrics he wrote in a foreign language. As for that song referring to pigeons... Raising pigeons is very popular in the Netherlands, as is racing them; the birds can sell for thousands of euros. George raised pigeons when he was a kid and at one point reportedly was considering giving up music for his other hobby, but fortunately for all his fans he finally chose music instead, and made enough money from it to buy a country estate in Belgium where his pets included peacocks. The song title seems to puzzle people outside the Netherlands, though, and one of the Progarchives.com reviewers, who really liked that track and called it a highlight of the album with its guitar jam, called it Penguins To The Sky (which would be a neat trick).

Btw, that AllMusic reviewer complaining about the lyrics in a couple of songs should have proofread his own review. He has about where he means abound in the second sentence, and three sentences later he has effect where he means effective.