Soon after his first successful concerts in France, he started to use the pseudonym "Niemen" instead of his real name, gaining wider notoriety in Poland and making it easier to pronounce by foreigners (Niemen is a Polish pronunciation of the Neman River, which flows in close proximity to his place of birth). His 1967 song "Dziwny jest ten świat" ("Strange Is This World") is commonly acknowledged to be the most important Polish protest song of that era; an English version was also recorded in 1972. The song was influenced by the American blues tradition. [http://culture.pl/en/article/did-james-brown-inspire-the-beat-generation-in-poland] He was one of the first Polish performers to wear long hair and colourful clothes and introduced the style of psychedelia to communist Poland, which displeased officials.