Only eight days to go until queen Beatrix will abdicate and leave the throne to her son, Willem-Alexander. In the meantime, a big scandal occurred: the official "King's song", composed by John Ewbank and meant to be sung by all Dutch citizens for their new king, met with such harsh criticism that the composer decided to withdraw the song. It was to be expected, though: listen and judge for yourself - and if you really want to appreciate the lyrics, here's the singalong version.
Just to be clear: I completely disapprove of the excessive "bashing" of John Ewbank as a person on his Twitter and Facebook accounts and I do feel sorry for him. However, parallels with the well-known bard from Asterix (who always ends up tied to a tree whenever he wants to perform his music) were too strong to ignore. What's more, even the composer himself predicted he might end up much in the same way if people wouldn't like his song.
The title refers to the first sentence of the King's song Daar sta je dan ("There you stand, in the end") and substituted "standing" with "hanging".
Update: just shortly after I finished my cartoon, our official Song Committee declared the song is to be performed after all.
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