Twelve years ago, a video created by an unknown group of Belgians was posted to YouTube.
The clip quickly went viral: today, it has garnered a total of more than 5.3 million views. It also, apparently, teaches you something rather profound about Belgian culture. "Belgium in a nutshell," reads its top-rated comment. "Can't get any more Belgian than this, love it," reads another.
Is the video a series of picturesque shots of The Grand Place? A speeded-up clip of the Manneken Pis wearing different costumes in different seasons? Or a scenic trip along one of Bruges' beautiful canals? Or through Tervuren forest?
No. It is, in fact, a song — and not just any song, but quite possibly one of the weirdest, and some would say oddly catchy, songs you'll ever encounter.
Mystery and madness
The song is called "The Pope of Dope", and was jointly performed and created by two Belgian groups, The Subs and The Party Harders.
The former is an electro band originally from Ghent. The latter — according to the song itself — is from the semi-mythical locality of "Wallifornia". (The Party Harders' official Twitter feed — which, incidentally, hasn't been updated since 2016 — also names "Wallifornia" as the group's point of origin.)
Both bands appear to still be active today — although, as a cursory examination of each group's website will attest, The Subs appear to be a slightly more serious outfit.
What is the song about? Well, it is unclear. To the extent that the lyrics make any concrete sense, the singer — the eponymous Pope of Dope himself — affirms multiple times (in English) that he is, indeed, The Pope of Dope: although, rather confusingly, over the course of the track he also claims multiple times (in French) to be "the devil".
At one point, he also exhorts listeners to steal money from their parents, and work on Sundays at McDonald's or IKEA in order to purchase certain illicit substances.
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Despite the nonsensical — not to mention ethically questionable — lyrics, one thing which is uncontroversially true about the song is its catchiness. "This morning I woke up with this nugget in my head, when I hadn't listened to it for years, it's nice!" reads the video's second highest-rated YouTube comment. "It's good, I've got this song in my head for the week now," reads another.
The catchiness is not too difficult to explain: its powerful EDM refrain is a classic from the 2010s Eurodance music. Yet this does nothing to explain the song's ostensible Belgian quality. What on earth is quintessentially Belgian about this song? Why do so many people praise it specifically for its Belgian-ness?
The Irish writer Thomas Moore once wrote that "It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed". Might this song, which contains considerable quantities of both, reveal something of the true nature of the Belgian soul?
According to many, it would seem that it does.
