This January 6 is Epiphany. The day when the Three Wise Men, Gaspard, Melchior and Balthazar, brought their gifts to the child king Jesus. And inevitably, this day echoes Sheila’s song, The Three Wise Menwho originally were Scottish warriors.
They wore kilts, played bagpipes and belonged to the McDougal clan which was fighting against its rival, the McGregor clan. Suffice to say that we were more in an atmosphere like Michel Sardou of Connemara Lakes than in the eastern one of Gaspard, Melchior and Balthazar.
The reason is that Sheila’s song is a cover of a song by the Scottish group Middle of the Road, Tweedle
Dee Tweedle Dum which can be translated as “White bonnet and white bonnet”. And which told a story like “Braveheart”.
So, how did we get to the Three Wise Men? In 1971, this Scottish pop group struggled to break through in Britain and went into exile in Italy. There, they met a transalpine producer Giacomo Tosti who would create hits for them and allow them to sell more than five million records throughout Europe, particularly in Sweden where Agnetha, the blonde from ABBA, before joining the group, will cover two of their songs. ABBA who also admitted that Middle of the Road had been one of their musical inspirations. As well as that of Sheila, by a combination of improbable circumstances.
“Wise Kings” number one in France
Sheila’s choreographer while traveling in Italy comes across the song Tweedle Dee Tweedle Dum while watching an advertisement on TV. The song was such a success there that Fiat used it for the commercial dedicated to its Fiat 127. It was this 45 rpm that the guy brought back to France and passed to Claude Carrère, Sheila’s producer. He loves the title and decides to adapt it. And he clicked when he saw the cover. Above, we see the Scottish group in oriental outfits in the middle of the desert next to the Fiat 127 and he immediately thinks of the Three Kings. And therefore wrote this text taking some liberties.
First of all, “like the Three Wise Men in Galilee”, that’s false. They never set foot there. They went to Judea. And not “following the Shepherd’s Star with your eyes”, a nickname given to Venus, a planet which appears in the sky like a star because it is so close to the Sun that it reflects its light. In reality, astronomers including the famous Kepler believe that to find Bethlehem, the Three Wise Men followed not Venus but a conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter. That is to say a moment when in the stellar vault, the two planets appeared close, illuminated by the Sun.
Small inaccuracies which did not prevent these “Wizard Kings” from being number one in France in March 1971. And even from traveling not to Galilee… but to Spain.
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