Het Dorp Lyrics in English Wim Sonneveld

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Below, I translated the lyrics of the song Het Dorp by Wim Sonneveld from Dutch to English.

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At home I've still got a postcard

On which a church, a cart and horse

A butcher's, J. van der Ven

A pub, a lady on a bike

It probably means nothing to you

But it's where I was born

This village, I still recall how it was

The farmers' kids in the class

A cart rattling over the cobbles

The town hall with a pump in front

A sandy lane cutting through the corn

The cattle, the farms

And along my dad's garden path

I saw the tall trees standing

I was a kid and knew no better

Than that it'd never end

How simply they lived back then

In simple houses amid green

With country flowers and a hedge

But apparently they lived the wrong way

The village has been modernised

And now they're on the right track

Just see how rich life is

They watch the TV quiz

And live in concrete boxes

With lots of glass, so you can see

How the sofa sits at Mien's

And her sideboard with plastic roses

And along my dad's garden path

I saw the tall trees standing

I was a kid and knew no better

Than that it'd never end

The village youth huddle together a bit

In miniskirts and Beatle hair

And yell along with beat music

I know, it's their right

The new age, just like you say

But it makes me a bit melancholy

I still knew their dads

They bought licorice for a cent

I saw their moms skipping rope

That village back then, it's gone

This is all that's left for me

A postcard and memories

When along my dad's garden path

I still saw the tall trees standing

I was a kid, how could I know

That it'd be gone for good

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SONG MEANING

Picture a faded postcard of a tiny Dutch village ‑ a church steeple, a horse-drawn cart, children cycling past the butcher shop. In Het Dorp (The Village), comedian-singer Wim Sonneveld opens that postcard and steps straight into his childhood. Through gentle, almost conversational lyrics, he invites us to stroll beside him along his father’s garden path, past tall trees and rattling wagons, while he recalls a time when life felt timeless and utterly simple.

But the song is more than a sweet memory. As Sonneveld watches television sets glow in new concrete apartments and hears teens with Beatle hair sing pop tunes, he feels a bittersweet tug. Modern progress has swept the village into the future, replacing hedges and cows with glass windows and plastic roses. The melody stays tender, yet the words carry a quiet ache: nothing lasts forever, and even the most ordinary moments can become precious once they are gone. Het Dorp is both a love letter to rural innocence and a gentle reminder to treasure the present before it, too, becomes just another postcard.

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Wim Sonneveld Het Dorp Lyrics