[4] Jordaan was born the son of a roofer, and grew up within sight of the Westertoren, on the corner of the Lijnbaansgracht and the Rozengracht, the edge of the Jordaan—by then an impoverished working-class neighborhood.

[5] He started singing in the streets at age 8, with his cousin Carel Verbrugge (Willy Alberti),[6] to help provide for his family.

He started using the name "Johnny Jordaan" when he was 14, and after vocational school began working various odd jobs and singing in bars.

[12] In the pillarized world of the Netherlands of the 1950s and 1960s, commercial success ("Geef mij maar Amsterdam" sold over a million copies[13]) did not mean receiving airplay with all broadcasting organizations—the socialist VARA, for instance, boycotted his music since it was too low-brow.

His farewell to his audience was a 1972 television show in collaboration with Tante Leen, Willy Alberti, Ramses Shaffy, Zwarte Riek, Harry de Groot, and songwriter Pi Vèriss.

National newspapers noted that many of the visitors were not usual churchgoers, and commented that Johnny had remained a singer of the people.

Jordaan had married Jannetje "Totty" de Graaff in 1943 and the couple had a daughter, but he had spent most of his adult life repressing his homosexual feelings.

Ironically, this song was written by Jaap Valkhoff, who was a famous singer-songwriter from Amsterdam's rival city of Rotterdam.

[25] Since he had lived the last few years of his life in the Staatsliedenbuurt (to the west of the Jordaan), that neighborhood also vied for a square named for him; the singer had really no connection to the Elandsgracht at all, though was engaged in the Edison theater there for a month in 1957.