Polish journalist Mariusz Szczygieł’s book Gottland is named for the Czech museum dedicated to pop singer Karel Gott.

As Mariusz Szczygieł, the award-winning Polish journalist, says in his cultural biography of Czechoslovakia Gottland (coming in May from Melville House), Karel Gott “is the Czech Presley and Pavrotti rolled into one.”

To give you a sense of his popularity, Karel Gott has won the Czech Nightingale award (similar to a Grammy Award) 35 times.  In addition, Szczygieł notes that every single book about his love life has been a best-seller: When the Lovers Weep (1999); Marika, or How a Young Girl Found Happiness—Three Years with an Idol (1999); In Bed with Gott: A Guide to the Golden Nightingale’s Love Live (2000); From the Secret Diary of Marika S, or There’s Only One Karel Gott (2001); and The Composer of Fragrant Lingerie (2002).

Szczygieł describes Karel Gott is “sacred in a desacralized reality.” Tourists—many over the age of sixty—wait in line at the Gottland museum in order to be admitted for twenty minutes (only twenty people are allowed at a time). “Getting inside Gottland is like obtaining a seal of approval,” Szczygieł writes. “The past is okay.”

To get a sense of how he charmed an entire country, pulling them through some very dark times, here’s a look at some of his breakthrough moments, with preference given to songs selected for an English-speaking audience.

When We Are Twice as Old

This is Gott’s first single, a duet with leading jazz singer, Vlasta Průchová.

Lady Carneval

In an interview on the Aktuality Show, Gott was asked, “Which song can you not leave out during concerts because you know that the audiences wait just for it?”

Gott responded, “Naturally, there are several such songs, but my concerts would not be complete in many parts of the world without ‘Lady Carneval’.”

Moon River

Karel Gott’s first solo single was a Czech cover of Henry Mancini‘s Moon River, recorded below in English.

All by Myself

After decades of recording successful ballads and other songs in Czech, Gott did a cover of “All by Myself” dedicated to twenty-one-year-old Jan Palach, a student who set himself on fire and burned to death as a protest against Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in January 1969.

Forever Young

“Für immer jung” was Karel Gott’s cover of Alphaville‘s hit song Forever Young with German lyrics. In 2008, the rapper Bushido did a version of the song for his album Heavy Metal Payback, and Karel Gott sings the chorus.