In Memoriam George Kooymans

 IN MEMORIAM GEORGE JAN KOOYMANS 

(11 March 1948 – 23 July 2025)

 

In the USA, George Kooymans seems to be primarily remembered as the writer of Golden Earring’s 1982 hit “Twilight Zone” from Cut because it was, incredibly, a bigger hit than “Radar Love,” as if that song were his only contribution to the band. 

 

In truth, Kooymans was the principal songwriter, and guitarist, for Golden Earring, sometimes on nis own, sometimes as collaborator with other band members, and his musical vision, part pop, part rock, part progressive, is what shaped the band over the years. 

 

However, Kooymans is probably a severely and criminally underrated songwriter and I’d guess he doesn’t appear on any “top guitarists of all time” lists either. Perhaps he is more of a hero in his homeland than elsewhere where most people only know “Radar Love” and “Twilight Zone.” 

 

Golden Earring was one of the premier progressive hard rock bands from Europe that, in the mid-‘70s, illustrated that a European sensibility could bring an innovative improvement yet remain basically faithful to a hoary American hard rock trope. The band started as a kind of beat group, morphed into a psychedelic prog type band and settled into a steady career of quirky, creative hard rock and Kooymans was a driving force all the way.

 

“Radar Love” was the major hit around 1973/74 that still finds a place on many classic rock compilations, with a highly memorable opening drum pattern and riff that is a visceral thrill each time I hear it.

 

The parent album, Moontan (1973), was one of those I pored over at my local record store, mostly because of the illustration of a semi-naked woman on the cover but Eight Miles High (1970) also got my attention because the cover image was more mysterious than that of Moontan and one of the tracks was the almost 19-minute long title track, something I wasn’t used to seeing on records when I was a teenager. 

 

Back in the day, one could listen to records at the record store on a try-before-you-buy basis but I was always too shy to ask but, interestingly, there was a Saturday late night rock show on the English Service that played mostly prog rock and. Jazz fusion (possibly because the powers that be who controlled the SABC believed that it was less frivolous than ordinary rock and pop) and that’s where I heard “The Road Swallowed Her Name” and “She Flies On Strange Wings” off Seven Tears (1971).  I guess that Golden Earring was seen as progressive rock rather than as straightforward hard rock.  Until “Radar Love” made it big, “The Road Swallowed Her Name” was the one song from Golden Earing I knew and always remembered because of the mysterious title.

 

Daytime radio and rock stations like LM Radio and later Radio 5 barely played any Golden Earring songs, unless it was “Radar Love.”  Some of the guys at school referred to the odd track, such as “Kill Me (Ce Soir)” from Switch 1975 but by and large Golden Earring seemed to be a best kept secret.

 

Illumination arrived with Earring’s Believing, (around 1975) a single record compilation of the band’s best tunes, which I requested as a birthday or Christmas present because of “Radar Love.”  Neither “The Road Swallowed Her Name” or “Eight Miles High” were on the album but “Kill Me (Ce Soir)” was, plus a bunch of songs I didn’t know at all.

 

It's a good compilation, not available on Apple Music perhaps because it was a compilation created especially for South Africa, or other non-European or non-US. Markets, with a solid selection of tracks covering the period between Eight Miles High and To the Hilt (1975), showcasing both the progressive and hard rock elements, often in the same song, of the music. I loved the selection so much I eventually created an Apple Music playlist with those tracks, adding “The Road Swallowed Her Name.”

 

In around 1976, Hit Parader magazine, a New York based US rock. Monthly, published a piece about Golden Earring and amongst the photographs was an image of Kooymans on stage, in a sharp suit and with shorter hairstyle than nis early ‘70s fashion, reminiscent of Bryan Ferry’s haircut at the time, though a tad longe, and this image mightily impressed me. It was as if he'd updated his image from the post hippy long haired hard rock ‘70s style in the way the band was updating their music, as musicians do who want to remain relevant when times and tastes change.

 

That image is probably how I’ll always visualise Kooymans in my mind’s eye; the sophisticated, fashionable rocker in a suit, in a similar way to how Robbie Robertson dressed for the Last Waltz show.

 

By 1982 Golden Earring, like so many of their rock contemporaries from the ‘70s, had changed style to a more commercial, slickly produced, smooth, AOR arena rock sound that doesn’t appeal to me as much as the ‘70s albums but I guess that’s my bad. Musicians with ambition evolve over time and always try not to repeat themselves, whereas I just want to listen to the old favourites.

 

I can only thank George Kooymans, and his bandmates, for being such a material part of my life and music collection.