Dragostea Din Tei
| "Dragostea Din Tei" | |
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"Dragostea din Tei" is the most successful single to date by the Moldovan band O-Zone. The single was first released in 2003 in Romania, where the group currently lives and produces, and in the spring of 2004 in most other European countries. It was one of 2004's most successful summer hits, as well as one the best selling singles of the year, across Europe.
Although O-Zone's version was the most popular across Europe, several other versions of the song have been made, most notably by the small Italian dance act Haiducii, who released the song in Europe at around about the same time and have been accused of taking it without permission. "Dragostea Din Tei" has also become a popular song to parody, as proven to some popularity with Gary Brolsma's "Numa Numa Dance" video.
Title translation
"Dragostea Din Tei" is written in Romanian and the title is not easy to translate efficiently due to the ambiguous translation of Din and lack of context for the phrase. There are several proposed translations of the title, such as Love among the linden trees. The intended translation is possibly shown in the subtitles of the music video by O-Zone, which translates it as Love of the linden tree. It is known that linden trees have strong lyrical associations in Romanian poetry, tied to the work of the Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu. Therefore the expression may be interpreted as romantic, 'linden-type' love.
Track history
In 2003 O-Zone released their second album DiscOZone in Romania. The album would include "Dragostea Din Tei" although the first single from the album would be "Numai Tu". However, with it clear that "DDT" was the stand-out track, it was scheduled for release.
At around about the same time Haiducii recorded their own version. Both Haiducii and O-Zone accuse each other of stealing the track, however neither group has sued.
O-Zone's "Dragostea Din Tei" had been released in Romania 6 months earlier and had a lot of success there, but as promotion in Italy begun for the cover version the group's record company began the promotional campaign across Europe.
The two versions were extremely similar. Whilst Haiducii hit number one in Italy, O-Zone prevailed in Europe thanks mostly to a release in the United Kingdom. In Germany, however, both versions hit number 1 and 2 in the charts at the same time.
Chart performance
"Dragostea Din Tei", the version released by O-Zone in particular, was a huge success both across and outside of Europe. It topped the European charts for several weeks and made the Top 5 on the Worldwide sales chart. Its chart runs in other countries were particularly impressive, the track spending nine months in the Dutch charts and four in the tricky UK charts where foreign language artists rarely enter at all.
In the United Kingdom O-Zone were tipped for a huge number 1, but only made number three due to Mario Winans' "I Don't Wanna Know" holding onto the top spot and a Euro 2004 single by 4-4-2 being released in the same week, possibly because of the limited availability of copies of the O'Zone single. O-Zone would overtake both these tracks and several other big hits in its chart stay, however, which lasted until the middle of September.
In May 2005, over a year after its original release, Dragostea Din Tei became a hit on Philippine radio.
Music videos
Expensive promotion was put into both versions of "Dragostea Din Tei". The O-Zone featured the three members of the group singing on an airplane, often standing on the wings.
The Haiducii featured CCTV footage of a man supposedly being watched by his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend.
Maiyahi
Maiyahi is the most popular Flash version of "Dragostea Din Tei". It matches the Romanian lyrics to Japanese and English words that sound similar. This video was so popular in Japan that it led to Dragostea Din Tei being redubbed as "Maiyahi" for the Japanese market and a CD of Maiyahi remixes by Japanese artists was commercially released, with the Flash video used as the advertising campaign. As of August 2005 the mix CD is still on top of the Japanese charts.
Numa Numa dance
"Numa Numa" is the second most popular internet meme based on "Dragostea Din Tei", created by the American teenager Gary Brolsma. It spread over the Internet with great speed, and this phenomenon was commented on CNN and VH1, and by The New York Times. Since then a large number of copycat videos appeared. Some of these can be seen here [1].
The "Riot" version (Rotti vs. Haiducii)
Similar to the above "Numa Numa Dance", this version preceded Brolsma's more popular meme and featured a middle-aged man, DJ Rotti, singing the Haiducii version of the song whilst smashing a vinyl record over his head.
Other versions
- The song has also been parodied by a number of different groups in Japan, most notably by several Flash movies attempting to graft Japanese lyrics on to the original Romanian by using whichever word sounds closest. The resulting hilarious interpretation involving monkeys, ninja Picasso's, and drunken cats became an instant Japanese internet fad covered by a number of mainstream television programs, prompting the single to be domestically re-released under the parody's name "Maiyahi." It is still one of the top 5 most-downloaded cell phone ring tones in the country.
- Dan Balan, a member of O-Zone and producer of the internationally successful version, produced an English language version of the song with New York club DJ Lucas Prata. The English version, titled "Ma Ya Hi" and available on the American release of DiscO-Zone [2], focuses on the "It's me, Picasso" lyric from the original to provide a theme of an artist who has lost his muse.
- An Austrian version with German lyrics was released 2004 by the artist "Antonia aus Tirol feat Sandra S.". The music was mixed with tuba and accordion sounds, the lyrics were changed to a story about flirting in the office. A snippet in MP3 format can be heard on Antonia's official page. It was topping the Austrian charts quickly after the release.
- A Eurobeat version of the song was remixed by Italian artist Sergio Dall'Ora in early 2005 for release to the Japanese market. Fusing the original song with the popular fast-tempo stylings of the Eurobeat format, the release was one of the few occasions a commercial Eurobeat song has been remixed from an already-existing European track.
- In Brazil, the singer Latino created his own version of "Dragostea Din Tei". Called "Festa no Apê", the song's lyrics are somewhat indecent, talking about a party (held by the singer himself) that became wild. For having different lyrics, this song resembles "Dragostea Din Tei" only in rhythm and melody.
- The Spanish humorist brothers Los Morancos parodied the song for their TV program as "Marica tú" ("Queer you") with gay lyrics. This version has become more popular than O-Zone's in Chile.
- A Dutch version by the Belgian trio De Feestridders, which criticizes the use of speed cameras also exists. Other Dutch parodies include "Muggen Hier, Muggen Daar" (Mosquitoes Here, Mosquitoes There) by Gebroeders Ko, and "Lekker Lekker" (Nice, Nice) by Ome Henk.
- An Afrikaans version of the song was done by a rather new Afrikaans artist, Nicholis Louw. The song goes by the name of "Net die een vir my", meaning "Just the one for me". The original 'nouma nouma ye' was kept. The song was also a huge hit in South Africa.
- A Russian version by DJ Slon titled "Эй ди-джей!" ("Hey DJ") about vodka.
- A Hebrew version performed by participants in Festigal 2004 (a chidren's song competition), apparently called "Numa Yey". It retains the "ma-ya-hi" and "nu ma nu ma iei" choruses from the original, though the latter is meaningless in Hebrew, unlike in the original Romanian. (In fact, the lyrics of the chorus are self-referential in that respect, and can be translated as: "The chorus is numah numah hei, numah numah hei / I don't get a single word, OK?" [4]) There is also a music video available (Windows Media, MPEG).
There are several other memes of "Dragostea Din Tei" in circulation, making the song one of the most parodied of recent times.
See also
External links
- O-zone official website
- Dragostea Din Tei lyrics in Romanian with English translations