Before you start looking through your secondary school textbooks for some revisionist history, I should qualify that the Indo-Dutch invasion of Singapore was not a military invasion, but a pop music one. Andy blogs about Sandra Reemer, an Indonesian-Dutch pop singer who shot to fame in the Netherlands with her repertoire of Indonesian Malay songs, whose fame also spread to Singapore and Malaya in the 1970s.

Andy writes:

Sandra has made herself known more as a songstress from the Netherlands than one from Indonesia, having represented the country three times at the internationally famous Eurovision Song Contest. The years were 1974, 1976 and 1979 and she sang, When It Comes To Love (in Dutch), The Party’s Over and Colorado respectively during the shows.

Her hit songs that had spread far and wide in Singapore, Malaya and the Far East included songs in Dutch and Indonesian. Some of the Indonesian Malay titles are: Kopi Susu (Coffee And Milk), Nona Nona Djaman Sekarang (Today’s Modern Ladies), Kapal Ladju (Speed, Boat!), Indonesia and Singapura.

Read more about Sandra Reemer in Andy’s Singapore Pop Music Influence blog.