The singer firmly denies that the ‘city of all our dreams’ ever existed in the first place. It is not only "these days" that "things just aren't the same"(line 5), Amsterdam has always been pretending to be something else than it really was. The so-called rebels were only committing very small acts of rebellion such as fare dodging. And in the mean time they were supporters of the monarchy, or at least were proud of their national identity, hence ‘we couldn’t see for orange’. Furthermore, it was always big money making businesses that made Amsterdam tick, as it was ‘always Heineken and Diamonds on the Dam’. The new image that emerges is of Amsterdam as a patriotic and capitalist city.