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.
Leven met een zeven
Doe Maar Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
De regen op het raam
En denk ik dan een naam
En dan stroomt geluk naar binnen
Een moment en
Dan is het weer weg
Zo snel als ik het zeg
En ik zie
De bomen op het plein
En ik denk
Zo moet het altijd zijn
Het zal weer opnieuw beginnen
Ah ah ah, en dat was het voor vandaag
Dit is alles wat ik vraag, is wat ik vraag
Leven met een zeven
Ah ah ah ah
Al dat streven naar een tien
Terwijl ik eigenlijk misschien
Wil leven met een zeven
Onverwacht dan
Kijk je even niet
En alles wat je ziet
Kommer, kwel en zorgen
Ik denk aan jou en de nachten hoe het was
Samen met een glas
Tot in de vroege morgen
En ik loop
Verder langs de gracht
En ik zie
De stad die lacht
Wachtende
Verborgen
Ah ah ah, en dat was het voor vandaag
Dit is alles wat ik vraag, is wat ik vraag
Leven met een zeven
Ah ah ah ah
Al dat streven naar een tien
Terwijl ik eigenlijk misschien
Wil leven met een zeven
Hier rechtsaf
De kapper op de hoek
M'n versgekochte boek
De dag loopt hier voorbij
En vanavond
Languit in m'n stoel
Dit is wat ik bedoel
Geen wonderen voor mij
The song "Leven met een zeven" by Doe Maar is about finding contentment in life, even if it means settling for less than perfection. The title translates to "Living with a seven," referring to the idea of being okay with achieving a moderate level of success instead of constantly striving for perfection and feeling unfulfilled. The song starts with the singer being reminded of someone by the rain on the window, and feeling happy for a moment before it fades away. This reminds him that happiness is fleeting and he should appreciate small moments of contentment. The chorus reiterates the message of finding joy in mediocrity and not constantly striving for a perfect ten.
The second verse of the song talks about how life can be tough and full of worries, but thinking about a loved one can bring back happy memories. The singer walks around the city and appreciates the small things like a bookstore and getting a haircut. The song ends on a note of acceptance, with the singer looking forward to a quiet evening at home.
Line by Line Meaning
Soms ineens
Occasionally out of the blue
De regen op het raam
The rain on the windowpane
En denk ik dan een naam
A name comes to mind
En dan stroomt geluk naar binnen
And happiness flows in
Een moment en
A moment and
Dan is het weer weg
Then it's gone again
Zo snel als ik het zeg
As fast as I can say it
Het duurt hoogstens een paar zinnen
It only lasts a few sentences
En ik zie
And I see
De bomen op het plein
The trees in the square
En ik denk
And I think
Zo moet het altijd zijn
This is how it should always be
Het zal weer opnieuw beginnen
It will all start again
Ah ah ah, en dat was het voor vandaag
Ah ah ah, that's it for today
Dit is alles wat ik vraag, is wat ik vraag
This is all that I ask for
Leven met een zeven
To live life at a seven
Ah ah ah ah
Ah ah ah ah
Al dat streven naar een tien
All that striving for a ten
Terwijl ik eigenlijk misschien
When maybe, in reality,
Wil leven met een zeven
I want to live at a seven
Onverwacht dan
Unexpectedly,
Kijk je even niet
When you're not looking
En alles wat je ziet
And everything you see
Kommer, kwel en zorgen
Are troubles and woes
Ik denk aan jou en de nachten hoe het was
I think of you and how it was those nights
Samen met een glas
Together with a glass
Tot in de vroege morgen
Until the early morning
En ik loop
And I walk
Verder langs de gracht
Further along the canal
De stad die lacht
The city that smiles
Wachtende
Waiting
Verborgen
Hidden
Hier rechtsaf
Take a right here
De kapper op de hoek
The barber on the corner
M'n versgekochte boek
My newly purchased book
De dag loopt hier voorbij
The day passes by here
En vanavond
And tonight
Languit in m'n stoel
Stretching out in my chair
Dit is wat ik bedoel
This is what I mean
Geen wonderen voor mij
No miracles for me
Contributed by Christian C. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
richardburns1560
Leven met een 7 is oke,hoger is allemaal uitsloverij.Toneelspelers hebben alleen een 10.
Brenda van Leersum
mooie cd
RastaSaiyaman
Henny zegt dat het avontuur met de vijfsnarige basgitaar een mislukking was maar dit nummer en "Als niet als" laten toch horen dat die extra lage snaar best in de muziek van Doe Maar paste.
Bioscoopfan uit Hongarije
"...wachtende verborgen" - niet "wachten we verborgen". Zie de juiste van alle versies: https://genius.com/Doe-maar-leven-met-een-zeven-lyrics
Bioscoopfan uit Hongarije
De stad lacht en tegelijk wacht verborgen - dat is gezongen hier.
Bioscoopfan uit Hongarije
Ik heb het nauw beluisterd met oortelefoon en het is goed en die pagina heeft hetzelfde geschreven zoals gezongen, sorry.
henny loozekoot
Wachtende verborgen is fout nederlands, maar wachten we verborgen is krom Nederlands! Een tegenwoordige en een verleden tijd in een zin dat kan eigenlijk niet. Maar het kwam waarschijnlijk beter uit om te zingen.
doetmaar
Je hoort gewoon niet meer dat de tekst van Jack Poels af komt.
Moonchild
:(