I feel racked with guilt over being unduly harsh regarding Kinderen voor Kinderen’s 1980s output, whilst discussing the three albums produced by Henk Temming. So, as a form of punishment… ahem… I mean, as a fun little exercise, I thought I’d go through each of those first ten records and select highlights that I hope might very well win over potential new listeners.
It has been harder than expected to whittle down the list, originally wanting to keep it as short and sweet as possible. Between my chosen openers and closers, which are obviously bunched together purposefully for their required effect, things mostly skip along in album order. I was going to have sub-playlists, including one for the gentler songs and one for what I refer to as KvK’s “calypso numbers”, being those with a coquettishly-tropical vibe, but I thought that method might break the spirit of the uninitiated.
“Let’s just keep things simple!”, became my ethos. Therefore, my tweaking of the running order mostly involved putting together a few energetic rock songs, separated by a cute ballad. You know, like how normal, logical, rational human beings would do it. Hey, I’m still learning how to be one, so go easy on me!
I’ve provided the reader and listener with a heavily-abridged text commentary below, rather than indulging in a running commentary of every single track. We all have places we need to be, even if we don’t. So, what follows are my “highlights of the highlights”, so to speak. Again, my plan is to be brief, so, if things get out of hand, then I am truly sorry.
You can find the full playlist here: Ik Heb Zo Waanzinnig Gedroomd
I usually like to get a playlist going with a “BANG!”, but, this time, I decided to go with something more atmospheric. “Het Land Van Vroeger”, from 1989’s 10, is very dream-like and mysterious, reminding me of Moby’s “God Moving Over the Face of the Water”, from the Heat (1995) soundtrack. Then we get the pace going with “Op Een Onbewoond Eiland”, which is one of KvK’s signature tunes. If you stood on a street anywhere in The Netherlands and sang this song, everyone about you would hum along. Guaranteed. “Brugsmurfblues” is about goodness-knows-what, but it always makes me jump for joy when it begins. The stage performance implies it’s about having to drag loads of crap to school with you everyday, but the title appears to signpost the lament of a troll living under a bridge. Hmm, go figure. “Trim, Trim, Trim” recants the hardship of keeping fit, with its music video being just about the campiest thing you can possibly imagine. Safe for work, and yet somehow still NSFW. The little blond boy on the rowing machine turns up in the “Mode” video too, doing some amazing “dad-dancing”. “Treuzeltechniek” we can all relate to, which is dawdling after being told to go to bed. I don’t have a problem with that now, what with being a grown-up who loves not being vertical, but, as a kid with a boring strict bedtime, I definitely kept things going for as long as possible. The ginger boy, a favourite of the KvK producers, who sings the song, nearly knocks over one of his backing singers during the live performance, which is worth looking out for.
With the bombastic intro section out of the way, 1’s opener “Ik En M’n Beessie” gets a more formal pace going. The Dutch don’t seem to use contractions much, but I think “m’n” is short for “mijn”, which means “mine”. Interesting, huh? Yeah, okay. “O, Dat Huiswerk” is wonderfully petulant. A kid complains about having to do homework, which is something else we can all relate to. I didn’t do much of the homework I was set, or classwork, or exam revision, or listening to teachers in general. I left school with three passing grades, which still doesn’t bother me to this day. I’ve learned more and gained more useful qualifications as a willing adult. I guess I always knew I wouldn’t be academically successful, so I chose to just sit staring out the window thinking about boobs.
“De Wrat” is the first agonisingly-cute number, of which I have created a separate playlist here. It has an interesting ascending melody, with a pleasant plinky-plonk rhythm to it, providing a perfect example of early-KvK’s strong points. Skipping down to “En Ik”, which features misshapen kids criticising their own bodies. While the song has a rather abrasive riff, the singer complaining about being too small and cute is just so charming that I simply had to include it. “Teddybeer” is perhaps the cutest song of them all, even though the live show’s production designers made a grave blunder in building a giant teddybear that is truly the stuff of nightmares. I don’t recommend searching for this clip if you value a good night’s sleep! “De Drummer”, surely about a boy explaining why he loves playing the drums above all else, doesn’t necessarily have the most pleasant melody in the world, but the character’s passion about his musical instrument of choice is infectious enough to warrant being on here.
“Beesteboel” is a rollicking centrepiece, which kicks the meandering-arse of proceedings somewhat. Definitely one you will catch me dancing to! “Mode”, about fashion, is certainly unique-sounding. Still, even with the charmless choral work, the lead vocals cut out a toe-tapping tune. The 80s rivalled the 70s for having the worst fashion sense in human history, so that makes for an amusing bit of schadenfreude. Are we doing the 90s now? Sigh. At this rate, we’ll run out of decades to copy! “Meidengroep” has a driving rhythm that belies its folksy instrumentation, which is echoed in the upcoming “Vakantie In Italie”. “Diet” has an offbeat groove to it, which many of these early songs lack. I approve! The music video for “Fisse Knul” competes with that of “Trim, Trim, Trim” with its unashamed camp. Erm, let’s just say they made a wise choice in picking older teens to perform in it because, well, you’ll find out.
Moving speedily along…
“Vaders Allergie” is one of my favourite of KvK’s calypso numbers, which you would do well to play at a family barbecue. It features such a bold musical tone and adorable vocal performance that it makes me smile the millisecond it begins. If you can find just one song in existence that does that for you, then surely your life has been improved considerably. KvK has those songs in spades! It’s songs like “Vaders Allergie” that keep me coming back time and time again. The same goes for “Spinnen”, about a kid being scared of a spider. The singer’s melodramatic gasps and repeated declaration of: “Stop!” is a highlight in its truest sense.
It took me forever to appreciate “Vakantie Met De Tent” fully, what with its jarring-inclusion of a prominent adult singer, but the small kid having the final say at the end of each chorus is fast making the song one of my all-time favourites. I’m finding new gems every day! “Astronaut” features the chorus of backing singers tripping over each other with chaotic joy. This is one of the charms of the earlier songs, before modern production techniques smoothed out the “errors” in the young performers’ vocals. This apparent-improvement may increase the odds of the producer getting more work, sure, but it diminishes the cuteness factor considerably. I’m sure one single button on a modern mixing desk could iron out “Astronaut”’s delightful-unsteadiness, but I wouldn’t press it myself.
And so I shall skip ahead to the closing series of songs, beginning with the “Als De Kat Van Huis Is”. It’s such a strange jazz romp that even the singer sounds like they’re smirking at its strangeness. It’s slow, purposeful intro just makes it feel like the beginning of the end, which is why I placed it here. “Schipperskind” and “De Lek” both share fairly-apocalyptic melodies, which descend into sadness in bold style. “De Lek”, in particular, can easily be described as “haunting” in its gloomy melodic outlook. And then we come to it, the title track of this playlist, which there is a reason for. “Ik Heb Zo Waanzinnig Gedroom”, which translates to: “I Had Such a Crazy Dream”, sounds like a drunk 8-year-old slurring their way through a Bavarian drinking song. The music video practically storyboards itself! Sadly, the only one that exists is of a blank-eyed girl swaying soberly from side-to-side, rather than a rebellious little boy with a mischievous twinkle in his eye getting hammered with his fellow Victorian street urchins. It’s the tune that got me hooked on KvK in the first place and should always feature at the beginning or end of any playlist. It’s smack-bang in the middle of 1’s tracklist, which I find a miscalculation, but hey-ho. They were new to all this back then!
I chose “Foto-Album” as something of an epilogue. It’s so simple and fragile and melancholic that, hopefully, it’ll leave you with profound emotions. I don’t need to have the lyrics translated to know what it’s about. The title and tone of the song says it all. I hope you are as moved by it as I am.
So, there you have it. My attempt at brevity has clearly failed, but I think I have done pretty well in summing up 64 songs at 2 hours 56 minutes of great, but still dated-even-for-its-time, music. KvK’s sound has evolved fascinatingly over the four-and-a-half decades its been going, ditching these old music hall skits for indie rock anthems and polished power-pop gems. They’ve become indispensable in helping me battle my lifelong struggle with depression of late, blocking out all the negativity and regret that comes with being an adult. There are sombre moments in the lyrical and musical themes, of course, but they’re never mean-spirited or at the expense of someone else’s happiness, which is a common tragedy you encounter in your mature years.
All kids want is food and a kind word. And maybe the latest generation of gaming console. But that’s it.
46 is released next Friday, 10 October 2025, so do check that out. I’m sure a review from me will follow its release fairly sharpish.
I hope you enjoyed my playlist, having done all the hard work for you. What I left out isn’t terrible, but they’re just not what I would, in good conscience, call “highlights”.
Let me know if I missed off any of your own personal favourites.
Do stay in touch, darlings.
Toodles!