TWILIGHT ZONE
“Twilight Zone” is a 1982 hit by the Dutch band Golden Earring. It was written by the band’s guitarist George Kooymans, who got the inspiration from a book by Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity. “Twilight Zone” appears on their 1982 album Cut. It was the group’s sole Top 10 Pop single on the US Billboard Hot 100 and hit No. 1 on the Billboard Top Album Tracks chart, the band’s only No. 1 hit in America. (More from Wikipedia)
There are two covers on the Index album: “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” (more the Vanilla Fudge version than the Supremes version) and the Byrds’ “Eight Miles High” (speaking of great psychedelic songs). If there was ever a song that cried out for a really extended treatment, it was “Eight Miles High”; and I still remember well the first time I heard a long version of “Eight Miles High” at a party while I was in college. The artist turned out to be Golden Earring, a Dutch band that has been around about as long as the Rolling Stones; they went on to have two giant hits – both of which I still love – “Radar Love” and “Twilight Zone”.
(March 2011)
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Golden Earring had an international hit song in 1973 with “Radar Love”, one of the great road songs that I still hear regularly on the radio. In 1982, they had another big hit with “Twilight Zone”; their fabulous, high-concept video intermingled a spy story that featured a topless model, callous treatment of a dead body, and a brutal injection of some sort of drug by a dancing vixen; along with concert footage and several arty shots. The video for their follow-up hit in 1984, “When the Lady Smiles” was just as controversial; it featured a sexual attack on a nun that showed black lingerie under her habit. I probably have a dozen of their albums, and they are all enjoyable.
(January 2013)
