Belgium's Whistler Delivers Frankfurt's Street Tune

MAY 15 1957 · 12:00

Bobbejaan Schoepen · "Straatdeuntje" · Belgium · 1957 Placement: 8 · Score: 5 · Language: Dutch · Composers: Bobbejaan Schoepen · Venue: Großer Sendesaal des Hessischen Rundfunks · Host: Frankfurt, West Germany · Type: performance innovation · Broadcast: pre color Schoepen — Belgium's most popular whistling entertainer — performs his own composition, a cheery walking-song whose verses he whistles as well as sings. He wears a modest dark suit and a small trilby, guitar slung low. Frankfurt's jury gives him 5 points. He places 8th of 10. The song is affectionate and faintly melancholy, a working-man's piece. Context Schoepen was a postwar Flemish entertainer — yodeller, whistler, country-western pastiche guitarist — whose fame exceeded what Flanders could contain. He had already toured Germany. Belgium sent him as a declaration that its pop music could stand alongside French chanson. Legacy Schoepen founded the Bobbejaanland theme park outside Antwerp in 1961, still operating in 2026 and part of Flemish family-holiday DNA. 'Straatdeuntje' is occasionally covered in Dutch-language cabaret circuits. Schoepen died in 2010; his Eurovision appearance is the smallest line in his obituary but the one foreign audiences most recognize.