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Don’t be fooled by the French title of the song and its chorus: in “Je veux de l’amour” (I Want Love), Belgian rocker Raymond van het Groenewoud does indeed sing mostly in Dutch. Belgium is an interesting country, linguistically and culturally, as it has three official languages: Dutch, French, and German. Most Belgians, in daily life, speak either French or Dutch, and sometimes Flemish, which is the dialect of Dutch spoken by Belgians living in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium.

"Don’t be fooled by the French title of the song, Belgian rocker Raymond van het Groenewoud does indeed sing mostly in Dutch."

Raymond van het Groenewoud was born in the Brussels suburb of Schaarbeek in 1950, and he has been an active musician from the early 1970s to the present day. He featured in a number of different bands as guitarist and vocalist while also working solo, often performing live under his own name with an accompanying band and gaining popularity in Belgium and the Netherlands with songs like “Meisjes” (Girls) and “Liefde voor muziek” (The Love of Music). In 1981, he wrote and first performed the song “Je veux de l’amour,” lyrically confessing the loneliness of a performing artist and pleading for love.

The spoken intro tells us about the high and low points of his career and mentions the – sometimes strange – requests for songs he receives from audience members. It ends with a spoken statement that is the essence of the song: “Artiesten hebben meestal maar één verzoeknummer… je veux de l’amour” (Artists usually have only one request… I want love!). It is unclear why he choose to have the chorus in French. Perhaps, when speaking of love, French just sounds better and more romantic. The chorus is not the only portion of the song with some French in it, though. There is a verse near the end that is really linguistically impressive, in which the singer admirably squeezes four languages together to form one desperate cry: “Je veux de l’amour (French), nu (Dutch), niet seffes (Flemish), niet direkt (Dutch), niet sebiet, niet weldra (Flemish), maar nu (Dutch), maintenant, tout suite (French), Huete (German), Godverdomme (Dutch)” (I want love, now, not in a minute, not immediately, not soon, not later, but now, now, quickly, today, goddammit!) Raymond van het Groenewoud, now 63 years old, still performs live to this day. He has many other wonderful songs, some happy, some sad, and some even comical.