Paloma Blanca

Paloma Blanca, often called "Una Paloma Blanca," by the Dutch band George Baker Selection is a hit song that topped the charts all over Europe in 1975. It can be found on the group's fifth album, of the same name. The single was also a moderate hit in the US in early 1976 (top 30 pop, #1 easy listening).

Background

The song was composed by Hans Bouwens George Baker himself, and features, rather originally for a pop song, a melodic line played on the flute. The song was rumored to refer to the abolition of fascism in Portugal, but a more modest interpretation is that the song is simply about enjoying one's freedom.

The title is Spanish, and means "white dove."

Versions

The song was adapted a number of times, first by Jonathan King in the same year as the original, and it earned him an award for Best Record of the Year at the Ivor Novello Awards and was a top five UK smash. Still in 1975, the dansband Säwes scored a 1975 hit in Sweden with the song, its lyrics in Swedish by Hans Rytterström.

George Baker himself rerecorded a solo version of the song in 2005 for the movie Vet Hard; the song had earlier been used in a 1982 movie, The Executioner's Song. Other versions were done by Demis Roussos and Slim Whitman.

Given its popularity and its middle-of-the-road quality, the song is easily parodied. One such parody was made in 1993 by the Croatian group Vatrogasci (Firefighters), who translated it into Croatian (naming it "Pekara") in a turbofolk arrangement. In the United States, Eddie Murphy, as the character Buckwheat in a Saturday Night Live television commercial parody, sang a mangled version, "Una Panoonah Banka."

British comedy group The Wurzels had a major mid-Seventies hit with their parody, "I Am A Cider Drinker."

External links

* [http://profile.imeem.com/Cjk703/music/0lf6BiWS/paloma_blanca/ Paloma Blanca]