Golden Earring - Why Do I (live on the beach near The Hague, 1986 + Dutch TV show Countdown)
This was a hit in the Netherlands, but a minor one, not getting close to the Top 10. It was the second single off their 1986 album The Hole, which had the band, especially Barry Hay, continuing to do the wrong things as far as MTV was concerned, especially in one interview. There was no video for this single, and the video they did for the first single, Quiet Eyes, was all Dutch cultural figures and references, pretty much aiming only at a country of 15 million people, another commercial misstep.
I did see a fan post that this probably should have been the lead single, especially in the US, and I agree.
The production was very '80s, and I've seen a couple of different stories about the recording of this track. The one in the description of the video at the beach is probably incorrect, saying the lead vocal recorded in the studio was accidentally erased and they had no chance to record it again and used a backing track as the lead vocal. That clearly isn't the case. There's what looks like more reliable info on the fan site set up by Casper Roos, a Dutch fan, who said the band and especially lead singer Barry Hay had been happy with the first take recording that vocal, but the producer hadn't. The lead vocal mysteriously was "accidentally" erased and it had to be recorded again.
I like the lead vocal they recorded in the studio, which you can hear in the Countrdown video because they're lip-syncing, but I wish the first take had been saved and released, since the band had preferred it.
