Three Colors (of Amsterdam)

 Hi Alex,

Somewhere in the future, my American friend Rick is coming over. I've written about him before, he's the one with the band. Speaking of bands.....the Dutch flag has three bands: Red, white and blue. And the US flag also uses those colors. Mixing in the fact that Rick loves music and will be visiting Amsterdam, it gave me the idea for this musical entry. And there was only one song I could think off....

BLUE

I know, I know, Jacques Brel was Belgian. But since he sang Belgian Blues, he gets the blue band. His version is also the original, which is why I'm going Blue-White-Red. It's one of those renditions where you can feel the passion, even if you don't understand a word of the language. (And the fact that's it in French fits nicely with the Blue-White-Red pattern. Considering what their flag looks like.)

 

WHITE

Eventually, a Dutch band braved a translation of the song. This is how I first learned of this song. Some would say that this song doesn't exactly paint Amsterdam in the best light. The thing is, Amsterdam isn't exactly the grand port it used to be, with Rotterdam stealing its crown long ago. So, IMHO, this song tells the story of the way Amsterdam was doing the Golden Age, when sails ruled supreme.

RED

Needless to say, this entry cannot be complete without David Bowie's version. Bowie was brave to take on this song. Not only is it about Europe, which might scare some people off, Brel is simple hard to translate. But he pulled it off.

(And after enduring two versions that most English speakers can probably not understand a word of, they deserve to be rewarded with a version that actually makes sense.) So without further ado....

And that's all for today.

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (Commander Nash)

 PS. If you hear somebody call Amsterdam "Mokum", that is totally normal. Mokum is the Yiddish word for city/town. (At least, it is in the Netherlands.) And it's become one of the city's nicknames.