Versions
The song was adapted a number of times, first by Jonathan King in the same year as the original, and it earned him an award for Best Record of the Year at the Ivor Novello Awards and was a top five UK smash (Baker's original reached no.10 in the UK). Still in 1975, Swedish dansband Säwes scored a hit in Sweden with the song, its lyrics in Swedish by Hans Rytterström. Siw Malmkvist also scored a hit with another Swedish version of the song, that peaked at number 8 at the Swedish singles chart in 1975-1976. A Norwegian language version was a hit for singer Hans Petter Hansen, also in 1975. Patricia Lavila had a hit in France with a loosely-translated French version (lyrics by Michel Jourdan), again in 1975. The song was performed by a Disney troupe at halftime during Super Bowl XI in 1977.
George Baker rerecorded a solo version of the song in 2005 for the movie Vet Hard; the song had earlier been used in a 1982 movie, The Executioner's Song. Other versions were done by Demis Roussos and Slim Whitman. Bobby Vinton recorded a version that appeared on his 1976 album Serenades of Love.
Given its popularity and middle-of-the-road quality, the song is often parodied. In 1993, the Croatian group Vatrogasci (Firefighters) made a parody named Pekara (bakery in Croatian) in a turbofolk arrangement. In the United States, Eddie Murphy, as the character Buckwheat in a Saturday Night Live television commercial parody, sang a mangled version parodying the Slim Whitman version entitled "Una Panoonah Banka". In May 1985 KNOB had a contest based on who could best replicate the yodel in Whitman's version, calling the contest a "Slim-off".
In 1976, the British "Scrumpy and Western" group The Wurzels had a Top 3 UK hit with their parody of the song, "I Am a Cider Drinker". The Wurzels version was covered in 2011 by Scottish Pirate Metal Band Alestorm as a bonus track for their album Back Through Time.
Byron Lee & the Dragonaires released a Reggae- Version in 1976: Paloma Reggae on Reggay international
The radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh uses the Slim Whitman version—studded with cannon fire—for his "Peace Update".
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Famous quotes containing the word versions:
“The assumption must be that those who can see value only in tradition, or versions of it, deny man’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)