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The camel train
Turkey: Athena's For real covered by Van Gelder
Jochem Van Gelder is 45 year old, popular singer, author, and TV presenter in Netherlands . He has released 3 albums and 3 singles so far, as well as written 2 books, . He is also the host of a child programme Praatjesmaker (Babbler), a kid's show on Nederland 1.
Van Gelder's latest single is a cover of For Real which came 4 th for Turkey in the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest. The song's name is De Kamelentrein which actually means The camel train. Fouradi is singing together the song with Van Gelder. The song is included in the album Jochem pakt de koffers( Pick up your suitcases Jochem), an album with music for children.
An article by Hakan Yalcinkaya. A special thank you to Bülent Sabudak for his contribution to the article.
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Ota was very good, and albanian sounded very nie while she was singing.i think she deserved a higher place...and yes yu were right about Lebanon..such a pitty that because of such a thing they refuse to participate..i mean waht harm can do a 3 minutes song from Israel??
Vincent,
It's actually the other way around. Lebanon did not want to show Israel, and wanted to replace it with 3 minutes of commercials.... And that's against the EBU rules....
Olta is 16 years old, she was 15 in december when she was selected....
as for Lebanon...yes i think als that the song of 2005 was good..and i would love to see Lebanon in the contest...as far as i know the problem was back then, that israel refused to show any lebanese entry live n air out of security reasons, but all participating countries are compelled by the rules to show the cmplete show live, and Lebanon withdrew in the end..i remember there was such a story going on back then.
@Alex Koenig:
i found Ota and her song more than good and pretty moving...yes i think she is just 16 or 18 years old, and i know it is normal to be nervous, but i guess this costed her some points..anyway great entry!! i thin i liked almost all f the Albanian entries so far, but Ota was kind of special..well she managed to qualify..that is ok..but i would have liked a tp5 position for her, even the first
@ both marc and Vincent
In 2005 the Lebanese entry was also very good and had a very good chance of collecting considerable points. Pity Lebanese authorities decided to withdraw at last minute 
@ marc
No I'm not family of Rolf.
@ Vincent
As far as I know Olta Boka is very young (though I'm not very sure of her age) and I think it's normal for her to be very excited on the stage. This year her song was also one of my favourites so I found the lyrics (in Albanian language) and from time to time I try to sing it with my bad voice :-))
Here is the refrain (I hope some Albanian letters appear properly):
Dite pas dite ne
Rrahje pas rrahje
Më kot kerkuam
Or' e përkryer
Nje zemër jo kurrë s'mund të jetë
Nate pas nate ne
Rrahje pas rrahje
Ne të larguar
Por jo nuk mundëm
Se zemrën të dy e lamë peng
Ah...
this version of the song is awfull!! the original was great, i think ESC 2004 remains one f my favourite ESC...i remember i liked very much more than 5 sngs of this contest, songs, i would still like to hear..and fr real is one of them.a great and original esc entry...but this cover is bliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaah h...that means..very bad
@marc X:
your favurites happen to be my favourites too.shiri Maimon was great..the song was good, her stage appearance was good, her singing was perfect, the staging was very nice..one of my favourites ever. Ota from Albania this year was also one of my favourites, i found her unfortunately a bit nervous by performing...the way she performed reminded me a bit of Anna Vissi and everything, anothe absolute fav of mine out of personal reasons
Sertab, Sibel, Olta, Ani and Shiri were simply fantastic. On the other hand, I couldn´t stand Ishtar, specially when she became breathless.
Waw Alex spooky....Yep I'm never in favor of the Swedish pop/schlager kind of music.... I like the more traditional entries. Hardly ever, I liked the winner, except for Turkey,Ireland (In your eyes), but lately never liked the winning songs.
One of my all time favorites is Croatia 1996, Maja Blagdan (Sveta ljubav). First time I heard that song, it gave me goosebums,.... When she performed on the night, in all the simplicity, not extravagant clothes, pure, I cried.... For me that's music.
This year I had the same feeling with Albania and Portugal. I absolutely adored Otta Boka, no concession, nice young girl with good voice and beautiful song.
Another one I absolutely adored was Israel 2005, Shiri Maimon. Stunning...
Btw, Alex we are more or less same age, so that's why we have the same favorites...
Are you family of Rolf ????
@ Vincent
You must have overseen my full sentence. I said Turkey is in the middle of 1) the Balkans, 2) the Caucasus and 3) the Arab lands which describes geographic location of Turkey.
@ marc
We have almost the same favourite Turkish songs except the Petr'oil on the top. My favourites are:
1: Dinle
2: Everyway that I can
3 : For Real
4 : Deli
5 : Halley
6 : Superstar
@ marc x
Oh, well, look, our tastes are not THAT far away from each other...
Samira Bensaid makes the second place in my personal ranking in 1980... I really love Bitakat Hob...
And I share your taste concerning the Greek entries from the former years, I also would add Marinela's Krassi, Thalassa Ke T'Agori Mou to your list...
And hey, obviously we liked the same songs this year. Belgium was my absolute favourite, it was hard to get that Ishtar were kicked out already in the semis... I liked neither Russia or Ukraine nor the Greek or the Armenian song... And I think that the Dutch girl was totally robbed - she made no single mistake, but presented a catchy song in a nice way...
Belgium was awfull this year....nerving, sung in a silly language..i loved the Belgian entry of 2003, the "Sanomi" and i even voted for it back then...but for me this year Belgian entry was very horribly awfull. But our topic here was Turkey, right? :-)
There is more than one fan of this year's Belgian entry here! I thought Ishtar had the best song since Sanomi for Belgium and they were totally and utterly robbed!!
Shame on the juries for preferring bland clichees like (Greece/Armenia/Poland) over Belgium, Holland or San Marino this year!
@Alex Koenig:
...yes and Turkey ahs always one language on the ESC: the turkish one, on this point i somehow miss the cultural diversity of Turkey(which by the way is by no means in "the middle of the Balkans", they just posess a small part of it)...
Athena's "For Real" was one of my favourite turkish entries ever, and certainly one of the very best of the ESC 2004.
Can't those Dutch people be original for a change, for cry sakes??
Guys, being in the middle of the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Arab lands, being encircled by the Black Sea, Mediterranean sea and Aegean Sea, having Muslim, Jewish and Christian population, Turkey has such a mixture of tastes and cultures all melted in one nation that every year a different type of music can represent Turkey in the ESC. Looking at your favourite Turkish entries lists, I see a wide variety of types (pop, rock, ska, ethnic, oriental, etc) and I think that's wonderful :-)
Stockholm
Yeah, it was hilarious! We need more songs like that in eurovision lol 
marc,
you could tell only because of the language, and that was true only for the countries who didn't use English or French because then I don't see how you could tell that Take me to your heaven for example was Swedish and not English or Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi was Swiss and not French or J'aime La Vie was Belgian and not French. And so on.
Jonny K:
hehe They do look like hippies and it's not easy to understand what they're singing but the song is funny in a way.
Stockholm calling
Oh no!! A My Gallileo fan!!!! I have to admit I have a soft spot for that song, I love the fact that although they are singing in English, it sounds like a completely different language. And the singers just look so laid back, like hippies!! 
Alex Koeing
Yes, I think you're right
No maybe I just have a different taste in music... For songs like Greece, Ukraine, Armenia,Andorra,Malta, Sweden, etc are all the same and are as original as nothing. 10, 15 years ago, you could still watch the contest and without knowing what country was singing, you could more or less tell. Because a lot of countries sent original, etnic entries. Now so many countries sent all the same songs. And than it's just a matter of neighbours and diaspora to get your votes.
Serkan,
I forgot about Cyprus.... you 're right, very nice song, original and very well performed.
THIS YEAR, MY FAVOURITE WAS CYPRUS ( WHAT A PITY MY WONDERFUL EVDOKIA, S'AGAPO) AND I VOTED HER IN SEMI .
You liked Belgium? Are you from Belgium? You're the only person I know who liked that one.
lol
(I think the Albanian girl should have ranked much higher).
Well yes Mina, I absolutely adore it. I have about 5 remixes of the song, put it on my ipod when I go to the gym. Absolutely love it. The same year I also loved the Maroccan song, I have that one in a remix aswell. I do love traditional music, the last Greek entries I can not stand while (for me) pearls like I anixi, To dhiko su asteri, Mu les, Sokrati and especially Miazume were totally neglected by the viewers. But he that's my taste.
This year I loved Albania, Serbia, Belgium, Portugal and France.
And oh to answer your question, I have absolutely NO Turkish blood in me. Although I wouldn't mind as most of the Turcs I know are pretty nice, warm people.
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