Crystal Waters ‎– Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless)

I recall an interview with a Dutch dance music magazine about this tune. Crystal: "I was hanging out in my apartment, minding my own business, and after some time, a homeless lady was sitting outside in the vicinity of where I lived, singing all kinds of things. One of these tunes kept lingering in my head, it went like "la da dee, la da da" all the time. I simply could not get it out, so I decided to incorporate the "la da dee, la da da" as an ad-lib and write a song around it, describing all I observed."

It's a common legend that initially, Crystal Waters did not want to record the song herself (her voclas not being good enough), but preferred to give it to Ultra Naté. However, after hearing a home-recorded demo, the Basement Boys insisted that Crystal would sing it herself.

The rest is history. The Basement Boys turned the demo into a club smash, which crossed over to lots of radio stations and charted No. 1 in various countries.

This was a real crossover hit in the UK in the summer of '91 I remember it because I was still at school and everyone sang along in the social hut, just before we broke up for the summer holidays! Even hardened dance music hayterz were singing along...there must've been something in the air back then ;-)