Heintje

Artist: Heintje

LP: Best of All

Song: "Giddy Up My Pony"

[ listen ]

I just got back from Austin, Texas! It was my first time in the city, and I had lots of fun visiting friends, eating tacos, going to the Austin Film Festival...and of course I stumbled upon lots of neat records. I'll be posting some of those, but first I decided to try exorcising this nutty song about pony-riding, from Dutch child singer Heintje, since it's been stuck in my head for over a week. Born in Kerkrade in The Netherlands on August 12, 1955, Hendrik Nikolaas Theodoor Simons (aka. Heintje) became a superstar with his hit 1967 single "Mama" when he was just 12 years old. To counter the "goody-goody" mama's boy image he'd earned with his music career, Heintje threw his weight and considerable acting chops into films like "To Hell With School" and "Hurrah, the School Is Burning," which inspired waves of arson, vandalism and massive drop-outs at schools throughout West Germany. You can read more about Heintje here and go here to see a list of the young lad's film and TV appearances.