It’s basically a loooong monolog of Willem van Oranje (our first king), revealing that he’s actually German (a big nono in 1940-45), has a very very very tender love for the King of Spain (our arch enemy at the time) … and the rest is just metaphors why it is great to own cows, be a cow … or drink milk!
That is why many Dutch prefer to sing “Nederwiet” from the legendary band “Doe maar”. Also very long, but much more relevant
Here you see how all citizens of Holland were cramped into a concert hall (we are but a small people) and sing Nederwiet. This clip always sends shivers down my spine!
Ours has lyrics taken from a poem about a British bombardment blowing the shit out of one of our military forts, set to the music of a British pub tune. It’s surprisingly… British, all things considered. The only saving grace is the US won that engagement in that the British had to withdraw, so it made for a good poem anyway. All in all not bad as far as they go.
Just a minor nitpicky correction here: the full poem has 158 stanzas indeed. Our national anthem is only the first two of those 158 though. Just sayin’
The internet fooled me once again … maybe the sculptures also tell a very wrong story too!!!
So … you sing the first two … and the rest is kind of rapped? Or just ignored?
The Dutch National Anthem starts with two or three very embarrassing stanzas. We wanted to skip it or at least sell it to Belgium. But even our southern neighbours didn’t want it.
Now me mumble the first Stanzas or pretend to have a cold … and then sing proudly about cows, windmils and cheese!
You must embrace your Dutch heritage. The Force is strong in you
If you sing the Wilhelmus, just don’t sing the part about the manly love for the Spanish king. It might be misunderstood and could get you into trouble nowadays (except in San Francisco)
The part about the cows is hidden behind many colourful metaphors. The Dutch language is much like Japanese, cause we use poetic descriptions even for the most trivial - or in the case of cows - mythical manifestations.
Cows are almost part of our specific Dutch religion. Something that no other people can say about themselves
Lots of great stuff in this thread. My dream is to be in a band where everyone else is at a higher level than me (yet they still want to play with me for some reason). You can learn and grow so much in a situation like that.
I bet they are bastards to milk- prolly need stools with springs.
We do have a Xmas carol about kangaroos though, and our National Song is about a homeless guy who steals a sheep then commits suicide when the cops come to arrest him.
it happens