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
Pourin' My Heart Out Again
Golden Earring Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Moonshine through the skylight
The bottle's empty and my mind is full
Of your ghost that keeps hauntin' this room
And I could spend all my life
Just sittin' here paralised
And I could spend all my life
Waitin' for you to materialize
I always felt for you
Bigger than anything
Baby I die for you
Hold me cause I think I'm falling
Like rain on a Monday morning
And when it rains I'm pourin'
My heart out again
I can't remember I can't forget
I can't see 'cause my eyes are wet
The bottle's empty and it says: you fool
How many tears do I spill for you?
I could spend all my life
Just sittin' here paralised
I could spend all my life
Like a thorn of glass in your eye
The lyrics to Golden Earring's "Pourin' My Heart Out Again" are a melancholy portrayal of a man who is deeply in love with someone who is no longer in his life. The song opens with the singer sitting up late at night, with moonlight streaming through the skylight, and his mind filled with thoughts of his lost love. He is haunted by the ghost of this person, and he feels paralyzed by his emotions. He longs for this person to "materialize" or come back into his life.
The song's chorus provides a vivid metaphor for the singer's feelings. He compares his emotions to rain pouring down on a Monday morning. He is "pourin' [his] heart out again" and struggling to cope with the intensity of his feelings. He is consumed by memories of his past relationship, and he can't forget this person or move on.
The second verse of the song further explores the singer's emotional state. He is so overwhelmed by his feelings that he can't focus on anything else. He is crying and shaking, and he can't see clearly because his eyes are wet. The song's final line is particularly heartbreaking, as the singer imagines the empty bottle in front of him calling him a "fool" for pouring his heart out over someone who is gone.
Overall, "Pourin' My Heart Out Again" is a powerful representation of the pain and longing that can accompany lost love. The singer is stuck in a cycle of grief and unable to move on from his past relationship.
Line by Line Meaning
Another hour past midnight
It's late at night and time has passed.
Moonshine through the skylight
Moonlight is shining through the window in the roof.
The bottle's empty and my mind is full
The alcohol bottle is empty and the mind is full of thoughts and feelings.
Of your ghost that keeps hauntin' this room
The memory of a past love is haunting the room.
And I could spend all my life
The artist has the potential to waste their entire life on this situation.
Just sittin' here paralised
They are unable to take action and are stuck in the same place.
Waitin' for you to materialize
The singer is waiting for their past love to appear magically in front of them.
Love was the only thing
The artist was deeply in love with this person.
I always felt for you
This feeling was always present in the artist's heart.
Bigger than anything
The love was the most important thing in their life.
Baby I die for you
The singer was willing to die for this person.
Hold me cause I think I'm falling
The artist needs someone to support them emotionally during this difficult time.
Like rain on a Monday morning
The singer's emotions are pouring out like rain on a dreary day.
And when it rains I'm pourin'
The singer's emotions are flowing out uncontrollably like a faucet during a rain storm.
My heart out again
The singer is sharing their deepest emotions and feelings yet again.
I can't remember I can't forget
The artist is unable to forget this past love, yet cannot remember all the details.
I can't see 'cause my eyes are wet
The artist is crying and their eyes are filled with tears.
The bottle's empty and it says: you fool
The singer is reminded that they have been foolish for attempting to fill their emotional void with alcohol.
How many tears do I spill for you?
The singer is questioning how long they will continue to shed tears over this person.
Like a thorn of glass in your eye
The artist's presence in this person's life is causing them pain, just as a thorn in their eye would hurt.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: BARRY HAY, GEORGE KOOYMANS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Wessel Kerssies
Another hour past midnight
Moonshine through the skylight
The bottle's empty and my mind is full
Of your ghost that keeps hauntin' this room
And I could spend all my life
Just sittin' here paralyzed
And I could spend all my life
Waitin' for you to materialize
Love was the only thing
I always felt for you
Bigger than anything
Baby I die for you
Hold me cause I think I'm falling
Like rain on a Monday morning
And when it rains I'm pourin'
My heart out again
I can't remember, I can't forget
I can't see 'cause my eyes are wet
The bottle's empty and it says: you fool
How many tears do I spill for you?
I could spend all my life
Just sittin' here paralyzed
I could spend all my life
Like a thorn of glass in your eye
valentinian2003
The Naked Truth and Naked II are fantastic unplugged recordings of a great band. Golden Earring has done great from 1965 until today!
kvnro
He man, toppie nummer. Goed dat ie eindelijk is op youtube staat.
blueeyes9166
Zo mooi en die stem........wauw!! Echt een song die door George gezongen MOET worden!!
k ramba
Im pouring my heart out for you mr. George..wish you all the best. U bent een levende Nederlandse legende. Ik denk aan u, met liefde.
Wouter Gerritsen
well, im 15 years old and discovered this. Why isn't this song as famous as it should be, it deserves more than just 12k views. tell your frinds you love this song. ... ... ... now!
Sergio Valentini
Belíssima música. Sergio from Brazil
Kenneth Hall
I always get something in my eye when I hear this...
Steven Atkinson
Kenneth Hall it's just such a beautiful song!
Barry Guthrie
awww brothers and sisters how much more can any one say ,this band this band thank GOD i saw them ,but i was younger by a few years ,so i was first with moon tan the 30 months in germany from long ago ,72-75 i loved this singer and how they have left forever in my mind
Pia Dufait
Nice Brings back nostalgia