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Andre Rieu
Andre Rieu - Credit: Photo: Karl-Heinz Meurer/Wikimedia Commons
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Andre Rieu
Ode to Joy
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Thursday, 30 January 2020 - 11:20

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Andre Rieu’s Ode to Joy a UK hit thanks to anti-Brexiters

Dutch musician Andre Rieu is currently number one on the iTunes and Amazon hit lists in the United Kingdom with his Ode to Joy. UK residents are massively buying and streaming the song to protest against the Brexit, scheduled to happen on Friday, NU.nl reports.

The live version of Ode to Joy by Rieu and his Johann Strauss Orchestra is a favorite among Britons who want the UK to stay in the European Union. The song is based on Beethoven's Ode an die Freude, the choir final of his Ninth Syphony. In 1985, this piece of music with the stanza "Alle Menschen werden Brüder" officially became the European anthem.

The anti-Brexit Britons started an action to get the song to number one in the official hit lists. They managed it by Thursday. Though the pro-Brexiters are also trying to get their theme song - 17 Million Fuck-Offs by voice actor Dominic Frisby - to the number one spot. On Thursday this song, which contains the phrase "and when the time came to speak, the British said fuck off", was number three on iTunes and number two on Amazon.

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