Dragostea Din Tei
| "Dragostea Din Tei" | ||
|---|---|---|
| File:Dragosteadintei cover1.jpg | ||
| Single by O-Zone | ||
| From the album DiscOZone | ||
| Single Released | Spring 2004 | |
| Single Format | Vinyl record (12"), CD Single | |
| Recorded | 2003 | |
| Genre | Pop | |
| Song Length | 3:34 | |
| Record label | Jive Records | |
| Producer | Dan Balan | |
| Chart positions | 3 (UK), 1 (Eurochart) | |
| O-Zone single chronology | ||
| "Numai Tu" 2003 |
"Dragostea Din Tei" 2003/2004 |
"Despre Tine" 2004 |
Dragostea Din Tei (usu. trans. as "Love Under the Linden Tree") is the name of a 2003 Romanian dance music song. It is best known as the most successful single to date by the Moldovan band O-Zone, although there is another well-known highly similar version of the same song released by Italian-Romanian dance music act Haiducii in 2004, which is widely considered to be an unauthorized and unattributed rip-off of the former. Both versions have become international hits, primarily within Europe.
Track history
In 2003 O-Zone released their second album DiscOZone in Romania. The first single released from the album was "Numai Tu"; "Dragostea" was the first single released after the album.
The details are not known, but it is generally believed that around this time, Paula Mitrache, Romanian lead singer for Italian band Haiducii, heard the DiscOZone album. Recognizing the commercial potential of the song, by a band otherwise unknown outside Romanian-speaking countries, her band made a cover version of "Dragostea Din Tei" and released it in Italy as their own original song.
In response, and fueled by the album and single's success within Romania, O-Zone's label accelerated and expanded the wider European release of the album, in an attempt to cut off the spread of the Haiducii version, which remained the most popular version in Italy.
The two versions of the song had distinct differences, and whilst Haiducii's version hit number one in Italy, O-Zone's is the preeminent version in the rest of Europe, thanks largely to a release in the United Kingdom. As a result, O-Zone's version is also the one known to American dance club and electronic music audiences.
Despite the fact that DDT had appeared on O-Zone's album six months before Haiducii's release, both artists accuse each other of stealing the track from them. As of 2005, neither artist has yet pursued legal action.
Chart performance
"Dragostea Din Tei", in particular O-Zone's version, was a huge success across Europe with some underground success outside of Europe as well. It topped the European charts for several weeks and made the Top 5 on the Worldwide sales chart. Many of its chart successes are considered impressive in some countries due to the market conventions; the track spent 4 months in the difficult UK charts, where non-English songs rarely appear, reaching the number 3 spot. It's staying power there outlasted many songs which had charted ahead of it. The song also spent 9 months on the Dutch pop charts.
Title translation
Dragostea Din Tei is written in Romanian and is not easy to translate efficiently due to the ambiguous translation of "Din". There are several proposed translations of the title, such as "Love among the linden trees". However, the intended translation is shown in the subtitles of the music video by O-Zone, which shows it as meaning "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".
Music videos
The O-Zone music video features the teenage band members prominently, recording in the studio and playing in and on the wing of an airplane, interspersed with cartoon renditions of the band members, often appearing as superheroes.
The Haiducii version had more of a storyline to it, centering around closed-circuit television footage of a man supposedly being watched by his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend.
Other versions of the song
Dan Balan, the mastermind behind O-Zone's internationally successful version, produced an English-language version of the song with New York club DJ Lucas Prata. The English version, titled "Mai A Hee", is sympathetic to the romantic and lost-love spirit of the original, but focuses on the "It's me, Picasso" lyric from the original to provide a theme of an artist who has lost his muse. Balan, a performing member of O-Zone, and Prata sing the song in alternating verses, somewhat similar to the original.
In Brazil, the singer Latino created his own version of Dragostea Din Tei. Called Festa no Apê, the song's lyrics are somewhat indecent, extolling the events of a wild party. The Brazilian song's lyrics have no relation to that of the original.
The Spanish humorist brothers Los Morancos parodied the song for their TV program as Marica tú, marica yo ("Queer you, queer I") with gay lyrics. This version has become more popular in Chile than any of the European versions.
There is a Dutch version of the song by De Feestridders, titled "Allo", which criticizes the wide use of hidden traffic cameras (nl:Flitspaal) to catch speeders in the Netherlands.
Appearance in Internet culture
A number of Flash animations and other homemade digital movies have been made using "Dragostea Din Tei" as the audio, with comical visual antics. Some of the earliest of these movies have in turn become fodder for further parodies.
The most popular Internet meme involving "Dragostea Din Tei" was made by Gary Brolsma. In his movie, recorded on a webcam, the portly late teenager sits in front of his computer wearing headphones, energetically mouthing the words to the song, and dancing win his chair. For many on the Internet, Brolsma's video was their first (and probably only) exposure to the song.
The popularity of the movie, seen ironic or absurd (as many such successful internet memes are) by many, grew quickly, leading to offers of interviews and appearances on CNN and VH1. Brolsma has since avoided the spotlight.
Brolsma's video itself has gone on to be widely parodied, including a version showcasing an entire computer class dancing to Brolsma's video.
- See also Numanuma for more on this meme.
The "Riot" version
Similiar "Numanuma", this early video features a middle-aged man smashing a vinyl record over his head whilst singing to "Dragostea Din Tei."
Mangled-English version
A Flash animation featuring the song also exists, using stock imagery and text to satirize the sound of the Romanian lyrics as English words and phrases, such as "fettucine" for the Romanian word fericirea, meaning "happiness".
There are several other memes of Dragostea Din Tei in circulation, and is believed by some to be the most parodied song on the Internet of 2004.
External links
- O-zone official website
- Dragostea Din Tei lyrics in Romanian with English translations