'Twas the day before Earring and all through the hall, Not a creature was stirring, no not even George, The band were exhausted from the previous day, They were just back from Belgium where they'd recently played.
Now Cesar was nestled quite snug in his bed, Where visions of drumsticks danced all through his head, And not far away, with a smile on his face, Rinus was dreaming of playing stringbass.
Barry was snoring and dreaming of blonds, Who danced all around him as he sang some songs, And George, he was dreaming - of what I can't say, Though he'll wake with a smile which will stay there all day!
But tonight in the city there's a big Earring date, And if they don't wake soon, they're gonna be late, The roadies are worried, the phones are all dead, And the guys sleep like babies, sweet dreams in their heads.
Come Rinus! Come George! Come Cesar! Come Barry! There's a concert tonight so you'd better now hurry! The drums are set ready for the maestro Cesar, And Rinus has a new set of strings on his guitar.
With a wink of her eye and a nod of her head, 'Leave this to me,' the Vanilla Queen said, And with no more ado she called Sjaak on the phone, 'You can sing Burning Stuntman - can you do Twilight Zone?'
With a bottle of hair-dye and felt-tip tattoos, Sjaak was soon ready to fill Barry's shoes, The others she called on, to play guitar or drums, And Marcel emailed lyrics of songs to be sung.
From somewhere, most likely the Earring newsgroup, They located a lurker to toot on the flute, All day long they practised, that merry band, Sure they could please a hall full of fans.
The hour arrived and they stood on the stage, Dressed like Golden Earring, hair dyed or made grey, Then at the last moment, with just two minutes left, The real band arrived at the run, out of breath.
'We thank you most kindly, but we'll take it from here, But meet us backstage and we'll find you some beer.' The show went ahead, like true stars they performed, And then partied long after and into the dawn.
