A brief visit to Wikipedia.org did not make me much wiser about Bill van Dijk, the singer that represented the Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1982. Apart from singing this entry, he has done some voice acting for childrens tv series, and portrayed Cyrano de Bergerac in the musical version of the legendary tale, both in Broadway and the Netherlands. Apparently he has been more active in theatre than in the music business.
The composer Dick Bakker is much more familiar to the Eurovision fans, as he had composed the 1975 winning entry Dinge dong and served his country as an arranger in 1978, 1980 and 1984 and a conductor from 1996 to 1998.
Jij en ik was no Dinge dong, however, and after receiving only eight points it ended 16th in the final results (among 18 participants). To me this song was better than I remembered, a good song with competent arrangement (apparently by the composer himself) which made the live performance much punchier than the recorded version. With his actor skills Bill van Dijk makes the song fun to watch and easy to listen to. This was not enough for the song to stand out from the other entries, so it was mainly forgotten.
The 1982 Dutch entry is like an old friend that you are happy to meet again with some guilt that you haven't been contact with him for a long time. I'm sure I will come across much more songs like this in the near future.
My points 3/5.
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