Jordaanlied

[3] Davids composed a number of Jordaan-themed songs (though he was a Rotterdammer) with his then-girlfriend, the English singer and actress Margie Morris, for the enormously popular Bleeke Bet (1917) which had the Jordaan as background and topic.

In the 1930s, with the advent of cinema, his plays were made into films; singer Johan Heester and actress Fien de la Mar were the most popular stars of the time, and practically every successful Dutch movie of the era was set in Amsterdam, a theme continued until the outbreak of World War II.

The finals of that talent show were held on 2 March 1955 in Hotel Krasnapolsky, and were won by a singing bartender, Jan van Musscher, also known as Johnny Jordaan.

[3] Still considered a low-brow genre, it was boycotted by a number of radio stations in the pillarized Dutch society of the period after World War II, including the socialist VARA;[5] only the AVRO played this music in the 1950s.

[7] Changing musical tastes in the 1960s and 1970s ended the widespread popularity of the genre, though it continues to play a part in the Jordaan's culture and is a significant tourist attraction.

[2] One particular profession that figures in the genre is shelling shrimp, a job done by many women of the area in the 19th and 20th centuries,[11] as in "Grote garnalen" by Henvo and Louis Noret: Ik zit aan de stal in het hart der Jordaan En ik pel voor m'n brood de garnalen Dat heb m'n familie al jaren gedaan Dat waren zo hun idealen.

[2] ("I sit at my stall in the heart of the Jordaan, shelling shrimp for a living; my family has done that for years, that was their ideal") As Klöters argues, that world was already gone by the time the Jordaanlied reached the height of its popularity and for the 1950s singers was little more than nostalgia for their youth; he sees this sentimentality it as a reaction to the threat posed by the fast-changing world of the post-World War II period, a nostalgia for a "safer" period.

[3] The Westertoren, the spire of the Westerkerk, symbolizes the area and plays an important role in the music--in 1917's Bleeke Bet, in the songs of Johan Heesters from the 1930s, and in many Jordaanliederen of the 1950s.