Formed in 1961, the band was active for 60 years, almost non-stop. They had 56 years of studio output, starting in 1965, which made them the world's longest surviving rock band, formed a year before The Rolling Stones, until their tragic end on 5 February 2021, when guitarist founding member George Kooymans revealed that he had been diagnosed with the neuro-muscular disease, ALS.
The band's core line-up of four was unchanged from 1970 to 2021, although extra musicians had short stints in the band in the 1970s. Golden Earring was always touring, except in 2000 (their only sabbatical year) and the final year of their existence, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 1961 George Kooymans (age 13) and his neighbour Rinus Gerritsen (age 15) formed The Tornado's in the Zuiderpark district of their home town of The Hague, The Netherlands. The band's first line-up mainly played The Shadows and The Ventures covers, as well as other instrumental tunes, and played its first gigs at school parties.
In 1963, as the band found out that there already was a British band called The Tornados, they decided to change their name into The Golden Ear-rings (after a Peggy Lee song). The band now performed around The Hague, soon had a devoted local following and landed a record deal with Polydor. Their début single, 1965's Please Go, immediately landed in the Dutch Top 10.
Under the Golden Earrings moniker the band eventually recorded four albums and had twelve hit singles in the Netherlands between 1965 and 1969, ten of which reached the Dutch Top 10. Several of their records were released internationally in Europe and even North America, although they failed to make an impact there.
One of the band's sixties singles became their first Dutch #1 hit: 1968's somewhat carnavalesque Dong-Dong-Diki-Digi-Dong, although that tune is now frowned upon by the band and generally regarded as inferior to other sixties Earrings gems, such as That Day (1966, the first Dutch pop single to have been recorded in the U.K., at London's Pye Studios), Sound Of The Screaming Day (1966) and the epic Just A Little Bit Of Peace In My Heart (1969).
The band's lead singer during the early Golden Earrings years was Frans Krassenburg. He was replaced by Barry Hay (ex-The Haigs) in 1967. The band's drummer for much of the 1960s was Jaap Eggermont. His successors were Sieb Warner (1969) and, in 1970, Cesar Zuiderwijk (ex-Livin' Blues), Golden Earring's definitive drummer.
The band's international career modestly started to take off in 1969, the year of their psychedelic Eight Miles High album, their first haphazard tour of the United States and also the year in which the band name was slightly changed into The Golden Earring and finally (dropping the article within a year), Golden Earring. On their early U.S. tours, their long, wild cover version of The Byrds' classic Eight Miles High impressed audiences and press alike. Golden Earring's 19-minute album version, as well as the stand-alone 1969 single, Another 45 Miles, were the first Golden Earring recordings to get some North American airplay.
The arrival of drummer, Cesar Zuiderwijk, in 1970, completed what would turn out to be the group's definitive line-up: Barry Hay (lead vocals/guitar/flute), George Kooymans (guitar/vocals), Cesar Zuiderwijk (drums) and Rinus Gerritsen (bass/harmonica/keyboards).
1970 saw a dramatic shift in Golden Earring's musical style. After the melodic, often Beatle-esque sixties beat of The Golden Earrings and a brief phase of psychedelia and hippie rock in 1968 and 1969, the single Back Home marked the birth of Golden Earring's trademark heavy, riff-based brand of hard rock with catchy hooks. Back Home hit #1 in the Dutch charts and 'broke' Golden Earring in most of Europe, notably countries such as Germany, Switzerland, Austria and France.
This marked the start of a decade of domestic and international glory. Between 1966 and 1976 seventeen consecutive Earring singles rocketed into the Dutch Top 10, while their international popularity increased, especially after their lengthy 1972 tour of Europe, supporting The Who. Buddy Joe (1972) achieved considerable chart success in the German-speaking countries of Europe, but 1973's Radar Love was their breakthrough smash hit worldwide: #13 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, #1 in the U.S. Cashbox chart, #5 in Britain, #8 in Australia, #10 in Canada, #5 in Germany, #6 in Belgium, #1 in Spain and also #1 in (last but not least) Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), to name but a few.
Radar Love remains an enduring 'car classic' and radio anthem of global fame to this day. Between 1969 and 1985 Golden Earring completed ten major tours of North America, building a considerable North American fanbase, as well as five headlining tours of Great Britain in 1973 and 1974 alone. Golden Earring toured as 'special guests' of The Who, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, .38 Special, Rush and many more, whereas bands like Aerosmith, KISS, ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd opened for Golden Earring. The album that spawned Radar Love, 1973's Moontan, was certified 'Gold' by North America's RIAA in 1974 and sold millions of copies worldwide.
The band failed to achieve similar chart success in the years after Radar Love: the progressive Switch (1975) and To The Hilt (1976) charted in Billboard's album charts, but yielded no major U.S. hits. The singles were clearly not what North American audiences wanted from the 'Radar Love guys'.
Golden Earring was forgotten by many outside of The Netherland and by 1980 even Dutch audiences started to lose interest: albums such as No Promises, No Debts (1979) and Prisoner Of The Night (1980) were commercial flops, leading to the band's decision (in 1981) to record a 'final LP and then call it quits.
The lead single from 1982's 'farewell album', Cut, a Kooymans-penned tune called Twilight Zone, surprisingly became an even bigger hit in the U.S. than Radar Love: #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks, thanks to heavy MTV rotation of the Dick Maas-directed video. The song (#1 in The Netherlands) revived Golden Earring's stateside career overnight. The Cut LP was certified 'gold' in Canada, with Twilight Zone hitting #3 in the Canadian charts.
In their native Netherlands the band did manage to extend their creative and commercial peak this time: the single When The Lady Smiles and the album N.E.W.S. ('NorthEastWestSouth'), both released in 1984, repeated the success of Twilight Zone and Cut. 'Lady' peaked at #3 in Canada, but fared disappointingly in the U.S. as MTV and even radio stations banned the track because of its controversial video, once again directed by Dick Maas, in which the rape of a nun was suggested.
After 1985 things rapidly went downhill for Golden Earring internationally (they would not tour the U.S. again), but - after a creative and financial crisis that lasted throughout the second half of the 1980s - the band wrote one of their most enduring Dutch hits in 1991 (the power-ballad, Going To The Run, which fared partially well in Russia) and discovered a new gold mine in their home country a year later: acoustic concerts in theatres, the concept of MTV Unplugged.
To everybody's surprise, the band's acoustic live album, The Naked Truth, slowly became their all-time biggest selling album in The Netherlands. Its sequels, Naked II (1997) and Naked III (2005) also went platinum at least once in The Netherlands.
Golden Earring's by far most succesful album internationally remains 1973's Moontan, which sold well over 3.5 million copies outside of The Netherlands and was certified 'gold' in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom (and platinum in the U.S. in later years).
Golden Earring released 25 studio albums, 9 live albums and countless succesful compilations. Almost all of these records were certified gold, often platinum, in The Netherlands. More than anything else, though, the band remained a live force of legendary status in their home country and beyond. They toured throughout each year until the very end, almost exclusively in the Netherlands, although there are still occasional live appearances in Belgium and Germany. 2009 saw Golden Earring's long overdue return to the United Kingdom: their sold out shows in Ipswich and London's Shepherd's Bush Empire were their first live appearances in England since 1978.
In 2011 the band recorded their first album of new material since 2003's Millbrook U.S.A.: Tits 'n Ass - studio album #25 for the Dutch legends - was released on 11 May 2012 on Universal Music and hit #1 in the Dutch album charts one week after its release to become Golden Earring's 8th #1 album in their home country. Certified 'gold' in The Netherlands, the album was generally believed to be Golden Earring's final studio outing, but December 2015 saw the release of a five-track mini album entitled The Hague, released more than fifty years after their début single and just before the band's sold out 'Five Zero' anniversary concert at Amsterdam's Ziggo Dome in front of a 17,000-strong crowd. 2019 saw the release of a stand-alone single, Say When: Golden Earring's final studio recording.
Nobody was aware of it at the time, but the band's 16 November 2019 performance at the Rotterdam Ahoy would turn out to be their final concert. After a year of Covid-19 lockdowns, guitarist George Kooymans announced his ALS diagnosis on 5 February 2021, the disease rendering him unfit to perform. Within hours, the band admitted that carrying on without Kooymans was unthinkable. In the words of lead singer, Barry Hay: "This is the end of the line for the band. It's a death blow. We always said: we'll keep going until the first one of us goes down. I never expected it to be George."
The band's final performance was released as a live CD and DVD in April 2022, named after Barry Hay's final words at the end of countless Golden Earring shows: You Know We Love You!.
Studio albums (released as Golden Earring, unless noted otherwise)
Just Ear-rings (1965, as The Golden Earrings or The Golden Ear-rings)
Winter-Harvest (1967, as Golden Earrings, sometimes spelled as Winter Harvest)
Miracle Mirror (1968, as Golden Earrings)
On The Double (1969, as Golden Earrings)
Eight Miles High (1969, as The Golden Earring)
Golden Earring (1970, colloquially known as 'Wall Of Dolls')
Seven Tears (1971)
Together (1972)
Moontan (1973)
Switch (1975)
To The Hilt (1976)
Contraband (1976, U.S. title: Mad Love)
Grab It For A Second (1978)
No Promises... No Debts (1979, spelled as No Promises, No Debts on most online platforms)
Prisoner Of The Night (1980)
Cut (1982)
N.E.W.S. (1984)
The Hole (1986)
Keeper Of The Flame (1989)
Bloody Buccaneers (1991)
Face It (1994)
Love Sweat (1995, covers album)
Paradise In Distress (1999)
Millbrook U.S.A. (2003)
Tits 'n Ass (2012)
The Hague (EP, 2015)
Live albums
Live (1977)
2nd Live (1981)
Something Heavy Going Down (1984, includes one new studio track)
The Naked Truth (1992, acoustic)
Naked II (1997, acoustic)
Last Blast Of The Century (2000)
Naked III (2005, acoustic, incorrectly listed as Naked Truth III on some streaming platforms)
Live In Ahoy 2006 (2006, live DVD + CD set)
You Know We Love You! (2022, live DVD + CD set)
Additional information:
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Earring
Official website: https://www.golden-earring.nl
Baby Dynamite
Golden Earring Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
With a dream in her pocket
Flight ticket in hand
She's going off to the crazy land
Green pastures, like blankets unfold
Out the door and down the hall
Deep in water she dives
She's got herself involved
And now it's evolved
Into interstellar overdrive
Well I know she's got a talent for finding me
When she happens to be in the vicinity
She'll be on the phone
When the dancin' is done
Probably all alone
My baby dynamite
Your lucky stars are out tonight
And your cards are on the table
All the odds are in your favour
Dynamite
Heaven says you're doin' alright
With a heart that's shaped like a diamond
You've been cut for the assignment
Don't be a moth, hidin' pain
When your wings go up in flame
Money is a rocket, blow it sky high
The more you get, the more you fly
Green pastures that unfold
A future carved out of solid gold
Found in a river, hidin' a treasure
Impossible to find
And your soul's sold to the payroll
While it's tryin' to have a good time
Stayin' up, walkin' around
Talkin' muscle and makin' sounds
Like baby dynamite
Your lucky stars are out tonight
And your cards are on the table
All the odds are in your favour
Dynamite
Heaven says you're doin' alright
With a heart that's shaped like a diamond
You've been cut for the assignment
The song "Baby Dynamite" by Golden Earring tells the story of a girl who is setting out on an adventure to live a crazy, thrill-seeking life. She is described as having a dream in her pocket and a flight ticket in hand as she leaves behind the familiar green pastures and steps into the unknown. The "crazy river" she encounters represents the challenges and temptations she will face on her journey, but she dives right into it headfirst. As she gets involved in this new life, things escalate into an "interstellar overdrive," implying that the situation has become out of control.
The song then shifts to a second perspective, that of the singer or protagonist. He knows that the girl in question has a knack for finding him, even when she's not actively seeking him out. The girl is depicted as someone who likes to party and dance, and she'll call him after the fun is over, perhaps feeling lonely. The singer then switches back to talking about the girl as "baby dynamite," a person whose success and luck are on the rise. He compares her heart to a diamond, as it has been molded and crafted to succeed in her world.
The lyrics of this song suggest that the singer cares for the girl, but he also knows that she has a wild side that can be dangerous. Still, he acknowledges that she is striking out into the world and doing well for herself. Overall, "Baby Dynamite" is a tale about taking risks, leaving the familiar behind, and striving for success in life.
Line by Line Meaning
With a dream in her pocket
She has a vision for the future that she is carrying around with her.
Flight ticket in hand
She is ready to leave and start a new adventure.
She's going off to the crazy land
She is leaving behind the familiar and going into the unknown.
Green pastures, like blankets unfold
She is stepping into a world full of opportunities and growth.
Out the door and down the hall
She is leaving her old life behind and moving forward.
Crazy river, with a cold shiver
The path ahead of her is uncertain and intimidating.
Deep in water she dives
She is taking a risk and diving headfirst into the unknown.
She's got herself involved
She is fully committed to this new path.
And now it's evolved
The situation has progressed and changed.
Into interstellar overdrive
She is going beyond what she thought was possible and reaching for the stars.
Well I know she's got a talent for finding me
She has a special ability to connect with the singer.
When she happens to be in the vicinity
When she is nearby.
She'll be on the phone
She will reach out to the singer.
When the dancin' is done
After the excitement and energy of the night has died down.
Probably all alone
Without anyone else around her.
My baby dynamite
A term of endearment for the subject of the song.
Your lucky stars are out tonight
She has good fortune and opportunities at her fingertips.
And your cards are on the table
She is showing all of her capabilities and potential.
All the odds are in your favour
She has a great chance of succeeding.
Dynamite
A metaphor for her explosive energy and potential.
Heaven says you're doin' alright
The universe and higher powers are on her side.
With a heart that's shaped like a diamond
She has a strong and unbreakable spirit.
You've been cut for the assignment
She has been chosen for this path and is meant to succeed at it.
Don't be a moth, hidin' pain
Don't hide from your struggles and hardships.
When your wings go up in flame
When things get tough and you feel like giving up.
Money is a rocket, blow it sky high
Money can be a source of power and success if used correctly.
The more you get, the more you fly
More wealth and success can lead to even greater opportunities.
Green pastures that unfold
A future full of potential and promise.
A future carved out of solid gold
A future full of wealth and success.
Found in a river, hidin' a treasure
She has discovered something valuable and important in an unexpected place.
Impossible to find
It was difficult to discover this treasure.
And your soul's sold to the payroll
She is working hard and dedicating herself fully to her job and career.
While it's tryin' to have a good time
Despite her busy schedule and hard work, she is still trying to enjoy life.
Stayin' up, walkin' around
She is always on the move and never standing still.
Talkin' muscle and makin' sounds
She has a strong voice and is confident in what she says.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: BARRY HAY, Barry A Hay
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
truthaintpretty
Man, thanks for posting these cuts from Cut...had this on vinyl back in the day and I played the shite out of it. Haven't heard it since then (we're talkin' almost 30 years)! Cesar's drumming was an influence. Sounds better today than back then!
Despina838
Barry has such a great voice.
Steven Atkinson
His voice is awesome. He has such an intensity!
David Creager
Just a great and awesome song! From a great band and album . Very underrated band in the u.s just can't get enough of them. Thanks for all the GREAT music guy's ❤️💙❤️👍
1
Music of the highest order. It is a privilege to hear it.
Richard Eveland
One of the BEST ALBUMS EVER "Stayin Up , Walkin around............................Talkin Muscle...................................makin sounds ...............like Baby Dynamite !!
Demented avenger
I had to order this album (CD) from Switzerland!!! Love it though!