Netherlands "can only come from a free competition". The voting sequence for the song at Eurovision has led the contest's official website to view that the entry "never looked seriously challenged for the title". The violin accompaniment by Sem Nijveen is reviewed by website DutchNews as "sweeping" music played by a "Dutch violin favourite", and as factors which "must have helped considerably in getting a top score", adding how this achievement was enhanced by a 14-points margin over the runner-up. It is reviewed by entertainment website Screen Rant as "hardly at the same level of popularity and acclaim" as future Eurovision winners "would be", however that it's the first "to set the mark for total points"; and that although it wouldn't take long to break this record, that this song "established the tone". The duration of the Eurovision performance is pointed by the contest's official website to be among some of the 1956 and 1957 lengthier entries which led to stress a need for a three and a half minutes limit, and from later editions to set a three-minute rule. A 2022 article of the British newspaper The Independent, which ranked the Eurovision victorious entries, placed the song close to the bottom, as number 63 out of the 68 winners, opining that it "drags on for an eye-watering five minutes" and a reason that the competition introduced the time limit. Releases "Net als toen" was released in early 1957 as a single by Belgian music label Ronnex Records, and is featured in approximately twenty other compilation albums from 1981 to the 2020s. After the Eurovision performance, in mid-1957, it spanned several weeks on single music charts, and via several of the compilations entering album charts, gained some renewed success during sporadic years since the 1990s. Recordings The studio version is approximately a minute shorter than the song's Eurovision performance, with the single and album features framing it between 3:23 and 3:27 minutes. Brokken also recorded the song in French as "Tout comme avant" and in German as "Damals war alles so schön". Other covers are the same German title for an interpretation by 1966 Eurovision entrant Margot Eskens, the Danish "Vaer som du var" by 1957 and 1959 Eurovision entrant Birthe Wilke, and the Swedish "Säg att jag drömt" by Gunnar Thim. Tracks and format listing Netherlands 7-inch single / Ronnex RX 24.036 "Net als toen" – 3:26 "Wees maar