Like most anyone else, I love watching musical trends take over the highly popular app TikTok. The song Una Paloma Blanca, by George Baker Selection, is a 1976 song that enjoyed remarkable success all over Europe and even the United States. It did so well that in 1977, it hit the #1 spot on Billboard‘s Easy Listening charts, even though it isn’t quite easy listening.
If you use TikTok and you enjoy the trend, you really should listen to the whole thing. It’s a fun, playful little song that is much more than a popular clip on a social media site where most users spend time lip syncing and dancing to the work of other people. Almost no one’s actually creative there. Even most “original” content is usually ripped off from someone else.
Sometimes, that’s a good thing. This is one of those times. I like this song so much that I made a ringtone out of it. Yesterday, in the break room at lunch, someone called me and some girl on the other side of the room shouted, “Oh, TikTok!” Kids.
“Una Paloma Blanca” roughly translates to “a white dove” in Spanish and tells the story of “…a poor South American farmer who works hard all day and then sits by a tree and dreams of being a white bird with its freedom.” This is according to Wikipedia, which for the most part cannot be considered a reliable or acceptable source.
Baker is actually Dutch performer Johannes Bouwens and as I said before, the song was a massive European hit that peaked at #1 in several countries, namely Austria, Belgium, Finland among others, as well as, no surprise, in Bouwens’ native country.
One of the unique things about this song is that it heavily uses a recorder, an instrument that I haven’t seen or touched since fifth grade. I remember the music teacher playing this song in class to show what can be done with the recorder. After leaving elementary school, I forgot this song and when it emerged as a TikTok trend, those memories came flooding back.
There’s a lot going on with the song. If you listen to the background music while the singers perform their lyrics, you’ll see that there’s a lot more than meets the ear once you listen to it a few times. If you really think about it, this song is not only fun, but it’s beautiful and relaxing as well.
I have to be honest: this is the best song that I’ve heard all year. The fact that it’s two years older than I is astounding. I’ll bet that in its day, it was considered to be a work of art, a masterpiece if you will.
As I am wont to do, I tried to reach out to Bouwens for a comment, but he is quite impossible to track down as his website is under construction and he is not on social media. No matter. The song stands on its own.
There’s not much else to say about this song except to say that if you don’t feel more cheerful after hearing this song, then you are likely a very boring person!