I'm not a huge fan of this song but I am kind of in awe of the fact that it exists and was successful. Even given that English was not the first language of its writers and singers, the chorus of this song boggles my mind a bit:
How do you do? Mm-mm, I thought, "Why not?" Na-na, na-na
Just me and you, and then we can, na-na, na-na
Just like before, and you will say, na-na, na-na
Please give me more, and you will think, na-na, na-na
Hey, that's what I'm livin' for
Even if you assume that all of the na-nas are euphemisms for sex, this is still rather strange.
Mouth and MacNeal were from Holland and came into being when a record producer brought together Willem "Big Mouth" Duyn and Maggie MacNeal (whose real name was Sjoukje Lucie van't Spijker). They had nine Dutch Top 20 hits between 1971 and 1974, when they split up. They represented their home country in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with "I See A Star"; they finished third.
"How Do You Do" reached number one or placed in the top 10 in North America and many European countries (though it did not chart in the UK). It made it to #8 on the Billboard pop chart and sold over two million copies.
In Australia, Mouth and MacNeal's recording of this song competed for chart space with Jigsaw's cover of the song; the latter was more successful. In Germany, Windows took their version of the song to #1. (It boggles my mind even more that there were cover versions of this song.)
Mouth and MacNeal went on have solo careers after their split-up. Mouth had some hits in the Netherlands before passing away of a heart attack in 2004 at the age of 67. MacNeal represented the Netherlands in the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest with "Amsterdam", finishing fifth out of 19.
Created January 2, 2026.