Douce 115

When I came across these "Wanda" glasses, one of the

reasons for buying them was sentimentality. "Wanda" was

a song of which the lyrics were written by the legendary

Lennaert Nijgh. He was also the producer of several LP's

for the CBS label and I worked with him on two of these

LP's in 1979 and 1980, playing the uilleann pipes and also

writing some of the melody lines. Lennaert had invited Eric

Visser (from "Flairck") to write the music for "Wanda" and

he invited me to play the pipes. Unfortunately, there was a

postal stike in Ireland during the weeks before the actual

recording day. Eric was then living in Galway and the music

did not arrive in time. All Lennaert had was a short lick (four

notes) from guitar player Isaac Guillory who was also invited

for the recording. Lennaert knew that I was also a singer-

songwriter and he asked me (well past midnight) if I could

write the music for "Wanda". I had the music ready within an

hour and he accepted the music. It was a wonderful experience

to work with Lennaert, not only as a session musician but also

as a songwriter. The next day we recorded "Wanda" in the

studio of Ben Cramer. CBS had high expectations from the

LP (it was a solo LP by former "Fungus" singer Fred Piek)

but it was a commercial failure, selling only 350 copies.

However, the critics in the newspapers were enthousiastic

about the LP, especially the "Wanda" track which was called

"almost malicious, the music goes to the bone". For reasons

best known to themselves, the CBS bosses gave Isaac the

credits for writing the music but that did not really matter to me.

The "Wanda" in the song was the medieval pirate Queen of

Vlieland, a beautiful island off the Frysian coast. According

to the saga, she listened to the wrong advisors and half the

island disappeared in a heavy storm. Wanda was so ashamed

by this catastrophe that she committed suicide. Heavy stuff....