Kim Wilde’s first records were written and produced by her father and brother, Marty and Ricky. The three of them have had a great influence on the music world, as this regular series ‘Wilde World’ shows.
One of the tracks on Marty Wilde’s current album ‘Running Together’ is ‘Love Me, Love My Dog’, a track written by Peter Shelley and Marty Wilde in 1974. According to Marty, it was “a song that hints on my passion for man’s best friend”. The song was translated into Dutch by Fred Koster, who took the theme of the song just a little bit further: the entire Dutch lyric revolves around the phenomenon of ‘walking the dog’, hence the title ‘Samen een straatje om’ (‘Round the block together’).
Several recordings of the song exist, the version of Rudi Carrell being the first one. The song was subsequently recorded by André van Duin, Luc Steeno and, in 1994, by Peter van Bugnum. His album ‘Zomaar een avond’ (‘Just an evening’) was released in that year, and it contains several cover versions as well as some original material. His version of ‘Samen een straatje om’ appears on this album. While Rudi and André are big stars in the Netherlands, and Luc Steeno has a very successful career in Belgium, Peter van Bugnum never managed to get past the level of ‘local celebrity’. He still performs for anyone who will book him, but he never managed to reach the chart with any of his releases.