Meester Prikkebeen (lit: Prickly Leg). The song is a duet with Elly Nieman , but her name is not mentioned on many compilation albums, while her name is on the single. The lyrics were written by Lennaert Nijgh , the music is by the singer herself. They are accompanied by an orchestra conducted by Bert Paige , who also did the arrangement . The song was released as a single in 1968 and reached ninth place in the Top 40 and eighth place in the Parool Top 20. Later that year, an EP of the same name was released. In the Kattenburg district , Amsterdam, a clip was made for the television program Moef Ga Ga by Bob Rooyens . The recording took place in front of a number of partially demolished uninhabitable houses . Large parts of Kattenburg were demolished at the time.
In 1996, De Groot and Nieman sang this song together for the first time in De show van je leven. Twelve years later, they sang it together again during 50 years of Dutch pop live in the Heineken Music Hall on October 3, 2008. In 2019, The Kik played this song as the closing track of their interpretation of the album Picknick with Elly Nieman, supported by Jolien Damsma. Boudewijn de Groot and Elly Nieman performed together at the live performance of this album on November 22, 2019 in Rotterdam Ahoy.
The song is about Meester Prikkebeen, a somewhat old-fashioned and eccentric figure. The character is based on the Swiss 19th-century comic strip character “Monsieur Cryptogame” by Rodolphe Töpffer , who is called ” Mijnheer Prikkebeen “ in Dutch . Another character from this comic strip, Sister Ursula , later inspired Lennart Nijgh to write the song ‘ Dag zuster Ursula ‘, performed by Rob de Nijs .
The B-side of the single features Eva . Together with the songs The Garden of Earthly Delights and Megaton , also written by De Groot and Nijgh, it forms a triptych (Heaven, Earth and Hell), inspired by the triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights by the painter Hieronymus Bosch .
