Doe Maar (the band name can be loosely translated as 'go ahead' or 'do as you say') recorded five studio albums, with the latter four hitting number one in the Dutch album charts.
Having emerged from a hippie community in the south of The Netherlands in the late 1970s, Doe Maar's self-titled 1979 début album was not much of a success. Founding member and original bass player Piet Dekker left the group. Ernst Jansz (vocals, keyboards), Jan Hendriks (guitar) and Carel Copier (drums) were briefly joined by stand-in bass player Joost Belinfante (of hippie/folk outfit CCC Inc.) before Henny Vrienten was recruited as the permanent new bass player in 1980.
The second album, Skunk, was released in the summer of 1981, preceded by the lead single Sinds 1 Dag Of 2, which didn't enter the charts until radio DJ Frits Spits had pretty much singlehandedly changed the song title into the more catchy 32 Jaar ('32 Years'). Single and album were reasonably succesful, but not more than that. At the end of the year drummer Carel Copier was replaced by René van Collem, who was 20 years of age at the time, more than a decade younger than the rest of the band.
March 1982 saw the release of the album Doris Day en andere stukken and the lead single, Doris Day, which - almost overnight - sparked off 'Doe Maar-mania', a craze unequaled for a Dutch band in their home country, including hysterical and fainting teenage girls during live performances and a brief domination of teen fashion in The Netherlands, with the fluorescent 'phosphor green' and 'lollipop pink' trade mark colours of the Skunk album and a huge market of Doe Maar memorabilia: pins, badges, sweatbands and what not.
Doe Maar were now referred to as 'the Dutch Beatles': very different music, but similar (if not worse) madness.
The Doris Day album had only just disappeared from the top of the Dutch album charts when the two-year old Skunk album hit number. The stand-alone single De Bom ('The Bomb') topped the singles charts in November 1982. Typically, the band's young fans hardly seemed to understand what an apocalyptic song it was: "Work on your future... before the bomb drops."
The band members were shocked and not seldomly frightened or depressed by their sudden popularity. They were in their mid-thirties; the hordes of teenage girls that suddenly invaded their private lives were everything but their peers. Doe Maar wrote particularly gloomy songs about topics that you would expect to appeal to 'thirty-somethings' rather than teenagers. Jansz and Vrienten, in particular, received tons of love letters from teenage girls, but also death threats from Dutch Neo-Nazis. They needed bodyguards. Meanwhile, the Dutch music press dismissed Doe Maar as a teenybopper phenomenon: the band was first sneered at and later mostly ignored by Holland's music critics.
In May 1982 the band fired its youthful drummer, René van Collem. His successor, Jan Pijnenburg, was involved in car accident shortly after he was hired. Somewhat bizarrely, the band then hired René van Collem as a stand-in for another six months of live concerts. The definitive Doe Maar line-up was now complete: Ernst Jansz (vocals, keyboards), Henny Vrienten (vocals, bass), Jan Hendriks (guitar) and Jan Pijnenburg (drums). Years later, René van Collem would express his bitterness over the fact that Pijnenburg can be seen on almost all of the band's famous group pictures and is generally regarded as the Doe Maar drummer (especially after the 1999-2000 and 2008 reunions), in spite of the fact that the drum parts on the studio albums are almost exclusively Van Collem's work. He also played the lion's share of the band's live shows.
The particularly dark 4us ('Virus') album was released in March 1983 and immediately rocketed to number one, just like its lead single Pa ('Dad'), a rather bitter song about generation gaps. 'Doe Maar-mania' was now at its peak and (during live shows) frequently out of control. The band decided to stop doing interviews, announced complete radio silence and attempted to focus on their next album, but had to conclude that there was no more inspiration. Doe Maar had burned out.
The announcement that Doe Maar was going to call it quits caused grief beyond belief amongst a generation of Dutch teenage girls. The Dutch Kindertelefoon ('Kids Phone') had to deal with countless brokenhearted young girls who phoned in, not seldomly to announce their imminent suicides.
The band did two emotional 'farewell' shows in Den Bosch's Maaspoort hall on 14 April 1984. Since then, Henny Vrienten and Ernst Jansz have pursued successful solo careers, mostly in the context of music composition for television and cinema. The band members remained friends and continued to play together on private occasions.
After more than fifteen years of absence - in which their work was rehabilitated by a new generation of music critics - Doe Maar decided to re-unite for one final album: Klaar (which means as much as 'finished' or 'done') was released in 2000. A string of sixteen reunion concerts at Rotterdam's Ahoy sports palace was announced. 175,000 tickets were sold in an eyewink, in many cases to the teenage girls of the early eighties, now thirty-somethings.
In 2007 a theatre musical about the band's music toured the Netherlands and won several important theater awards. The success of 'Doe Maar - The Musical' was followed by another reunion show, at De Kuip football stadium in Rotterdam. 50,000 tickets sold out within the hour, three more concerts were added... and also sold out in no-time. In an interview on 20 June 2008, Henny Vrienten said: "This is no longer a 'reunion'. Doe Maar is back, for real." Doe Maar still performs regularly in The Netherlands, mostly at festivals.
Dansmuziek
Doe Maar Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Wellicht een wijsje van weleer
Ik dans alleen, maar doe dat meer
Mag ik wat dansmuziek meneer
Muziek, mijn passen zijn wat stijf
Ah, ik heb moeite met dit lijf
Ooit was ik soepel sterk en vlug
refr.:
Leve de man die alles heeft
Je kunt het niet bedenken of hij kan het kopen
Let op de man die alles heeft
Kijk eens hoe die kijkt als hij iets moois ziet lopen
Alles van mij totaan de horizon
Maar keek er nog een keer een meisje om
Hoppa hoppa hoppa
Speel nog wat dansmuziek meneer
Oh, ik heb heimwee naar wel (heimwee naar weleer)
Ik wil nog wel, maar kan niet meer
En de herinnering doet zeer
refr.
Mag ik wat dansmuziek meneer
Toe, mag ik wat dansmuziek meneer
Ah, mag ik wat dansmuziek meneer
Maar keek er nog een keer een meisje om
Hoppa hoppa hoppa
Tsja
Hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat
En een twee drie vier
En een twee drie en vier
En een en twee en drie en vier
Hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat
Hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat
Hoppa hoppa
Hoppa hoppa
Hoppa hoppa
Hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat
En een twee drie vier
En een twee drie en vier
Hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat
Hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat
Hoppa hoppa
En een twee drie vier
Hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat
Hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat
The song "Dansmuziek" by Doe Maar is about an older person who is nostalgic for the dancing days of their youth. They ask the band to play some old dance music, as they reminisce about a time when their body was more flexible and they were able to dance with ease. The lyrics mention a man who has everything and can buy anything he wants, but the person singing still longs for the simple pleasure of dancing with a beautiful girl. The song repeats the phrase "Hoppa hoppa" as the person tries to remember how to dance, but ultimately it's clear that their body is no longer capable of dancing the way it once could. The song is a poignant reminder that time is fleeting and that we must cherish the moments in life that bring us joy.
One interesting fact about "Dansmuziek" is that it was released by Dutch band Doe Maar in 1982, and became a huge hit in the Netherlands. The band was known for blending ska and reggae rhythms with Dutch-language lyrics, and they were incredibly popular in their home country in the early 1980s. Another interesting fact is that "Dansmuziek" was one of several songs that contributed to a youth culture movement in the Netherlands called "Nederpop" (Dutch pop), which sought to create a distinctively Dutch music scene that was separate from the more mainstream music of England and the United States. "Dansmuziek" became an anthem for the Nederpop movement, and it remains a beloved song in Dutch music history.
Line by Line Meaning
Mag ik wat dansmuziek meneer
May I please have some dance music?
Wellicht een wijsje van weleer
Perhaps a tune from the past?
Ik dans alleen, maar doe dat meer
I dance alone, but I do it often
Muziek, mijn passen zijn wat stijf
Music, my steps are a bit stiff
Ah, ik heb moeite met dit lijf
Ah, I struggle with this body
Ooit was ik soepel sterk en vlug
Once I was agile, strong, and quick
Maar nee, die tijd komt nooit terug
But no, that time will never return
Leve de man die alles heeft
Long live the man who has everything
Je kunt het niet bedenken of hij kan het kopen
You can't think of anything he can't buy
Let op de man die alles heeft
Watch the man who has everything
Kijk eens hoe die kijkt als hij iets moois ziet lopen
See how he looks when he sees something beautiful walking by
Alles van mij totaan de horizon
Everything I have, as far as the horizon
Maar keek er nog een keer een meisje om
But if a girl looks back one more time
Speel nog wat dansmuziek meneer
Play some more dance music, sir
Oh, ik heb heimwee naar wel
Oh, I am homesick for the past
Ik wil nog wel, maar kan niet meer
I still want to, but I can't anymore
En de herinnering doet zeer
And the memory hurts
Toe, mag ik wat dansmuziek meneer
Please, can I have some more dance music, sir?
Maar keek er nog een keer een meisje om
But if a girl looks back one more time
Hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat
How do you do that, how do you do that, how do you do that, how do you do that?
En een twee drie vier
And one two three four
En een twee drie en vier
And one two three and four
En een en twee en drie en vier
And one and two and three and four
Hoppa hoppa
Hop, hop
Contributed by Lincoln F. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Cassandra Winkel
levende legendes en dan komen ze met nog zoiets geweldigs we want more and more and more
Martin ter Denge
aahhh, hier zoek ik al tijden naar! HOPPA! SKA!
Jeroen van Gent
Fijn !
Inosience
De intro is gelijk aan come dancing van de kinks, Maar ik vind dit nummer veel beter, Zowiezo tig keer beter als waar mijn leeftijds genoten naar luisteren...
MsPin0
19 Oktober in Gelredome!! Ik ga erheeen!!!!
vincie94
Hoe doe je dat, Hoe doe je dat, hoe doe je dat:)
Floris de Vries
Jawel het lijkt zelfs op het hele nummer Luister maar goed .
RaoulakaSwa
hoe doen ze dat?!?
Joseph Macias
Mag ik wat dansmuziek meneer
Unbound
Hoe doe je dat hoe doe je dat hoe doe je dat hoe doe je dat