Are You Receiving Me

Hey Zoo Freaks, the Zoo Crew has the needle down on a real stretch of road music right about now, something that takes its time and fills the room. Golden Earring's "Are You Receiving Me" from the 1973 album Moontan is playing, and this cut runs past nine and a half minutes, the longest track on the record and the one a whole lot of listeners call the finest. It sits there as the closer on some editions, a long instrumental-heavy piece that feels like a transmission coming in from somewhere farther out. Written by George Kooymans, Barry Hay, and a third credit to John Fenton, it stands apart from the other tracks that were just the duo. The lyrics open with those lines about circles turning into spirals and idols that aren't machines, about picking up the signals and flashing on where you've been. Then it asks the question over and over, the pilot's plea, close to insanity, recharge your battery. Songfacts notes it as largely instrumental and distinctly metaphysical, the kind of track that might well go down as the band's masterpiece for those who dig past the hit.

The saxophone from Bertus Borgers weaves through the middle section, subdued rather than flashy, intertwining with the overdubbed guitar work from Kooymans in a way that builds the atmosphere instead of just showing off. Listeners over the years have pointed to that sax as one of the highlights, the kind of detail that rewards the long listen. One commenter on Songfacts remembered catching the band opening for Joe Cocker at Winterland in San Francisco in 1974, only his second concert at age fourteen, and said the Earring blew the stage up that night regardless of what else happened with the headliner. Another wondered aloud if Patricia Paay was the one adding those extra backing vocals in the mix. Reviews from places like Louder have described it as a cosmic, Hawkwind-style excursion, a ten-minute psychedelic journey where the technical brilliance of the guitars and the plunging saxophone keep it moving without ever feeling like it overstays. Fans posting about Moontan still call this the standout for them, the deep cut that made the whole album stick after they bought it for the single. It is the kind of freeform album rock that fits what we spin here, the longer pieces that let the story breathe.

The whole Moontan set was the one that broke Golden Earring internationally, the gold-certified album that carried "Radar Love" into the charts in the States and the UK, but the longer tracks like this one and "Vanilla Queen" showed the progressive leanings and the high-energy rock the band had been honing. Recorded in Hilversum and produced by the band with Fred Haayen as executive producer, it had additional texture from Eelco Gelling on slide guitar and that sax. Different international pressings shuffled the order a bit, but "Are You Receiving Me" was always there, the one that stretches out and asks if anybody is still on the frequency. Listeners who grew up with the eight-track or the vinyl still talk about it as driving music, the kind of album you put on and let roll while the highway goes by. The cover art itself became iconic, and the record as a whole ranked high in those cosmic rock lists that Q and Mojo put together years later. It is more than the hit, and this particular track is the one that keeps rewarding the repeat plays.

To understand how a band gets to a piece like this, you have to go back to how Golden Earring got started in the first place. It all began in 1961 in The Hague, Netherlands, when two neighborhood kids decided to form a group. George Kooymans was thirteen and his next-door neighbor Rinus Gerritsen was fifteen. They started out calling themselves the Tornados, but that name was already taken by another outfit, so they switched to the Golden Earrings. The new name came from an instrumental by the British band the Hunters, a group they had opened for. These were post-war baby boom kids spending time on the streets with a ball at their feet, music drifting out of open windows and echoing in the stairwells. They shared a passion for the guitar and the dream of a band that would lead somewhere. Early lineups included Frans Krassenburg on lead vocals and Jaap Eggermont on drums. They scored a hit with their debut single "Please Go" in 1965. Dissatisfied with the Dutch studios at the time, their manager Fred Haayen arranged for them to record in London at Pye Records, where "That Day" reached number two on the Dutch charts.

The band kept evolving through the rest of the sixties. Barry Hay joined in 1967, replacing Krassenburg as the frontman and bringing his vocals along with flute and later saxophone. The name shifted a couple more times, dropping the plural and the article until it settled as Golden Earring. By 1969 and into 1970, drummer Cesar Zuiderwijk came aboard and locked in the classic four-piece: Kooymans on guitar and vocals, Gerritsen on bass and keyboards, Hay, and Zuiderwijk on drums. That lineup would stay together for more than fifty years, one of the longest-running in rock. They moved through a psychedelic phase, doing a long version of the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" that became a live staple and shaped how they approached the studio. Then they found their own high-energy rock sound around 1970. US tours started in 1969 and 1970, opening for bigger names and grinding it out on the road in the States. Records came out on Perception, and while some of the early American releases underperformed, the groundwork was there. By the time they got to Moontan in 1973, the ninth studio album, they had the road experience and the chemistry to stretch out on tracks like this one.

They were never just the band with the one big driving single. The equal split of the money, the fact that they lived near each other and hung out, the lack of the usual ego battles, kept the brotherhood going through the later albums, the acoustic theater shows, the Naked Truth recordings, and right up until 2021 when Kooymans was diagnosed with ALS and the active career stopped. Fans still share the stories and the collections in online groups, talking about the deeper cuts and the live nights. You can dig further on the official site at golden-earring.nl, where the discography lists Moontan with the full track listing that includes "Are You Receiving Me." Follow the official Facebook at facebook.com/goldenearring, the Instagram at instagram.com/4goldenearring, and the X account at x.com/4GoldenEarring. There is also the Coming On Strong Fans group on Facebook, which started out as Golden Earring Undercover Fans and keeps the Dutch rock pride from The Hague going with the music and the memories. The Zoo Crew will keep spinning the long ones and the stories that go with them for the Zoo Freaks. Catch more of the freeform album rock and the deep cuts over at THE ZOO.