On The Dawn Of The Sixth Of June: The Rising Sun

The seventh shape is the Rising Sun

Today, on this morning of the sixth of June, sunrise wasn’t any different from most other days. But exactly eighty years ago, on the beaches of Normandy, dawn was unlike any other. I remember this scene from the movie “The Longest Day” where Werner Pluskat is looking out to sea from his bunker to try and spot any invasion forces, feeling weary after another sleepless night. And music is present too as a witness: Beethoven is there to mark the moment when Pluskat’s eyes show the utter panic when he sees the allied ships at the horizon. Percussive movements from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, as a threat and warning, and filled with a heavy sense of anger or redemption, accompany this moment when hope seems to come into play again and has its wondrous action of possibilities for change revealed. A dark night that may finally come to an end …

The aptly titled “Les Nuits” is perhaps Nits’ darkest album that lives in the slumber between night and day, dark and light, nightmare and daydream. And there’s a very remarkable song on the album, right after the opening titlesong “Les Nuits” – a quiet reflection by the patient phenomenologists that Nits are, slowly making its way through the opposites inside the world, portraying the struggles with negative emotions like anger and jealousy that we all hold inside us – which is called “The Rising Sun”. It has always been a favourite of mine. This song somehow strikes a very different chord in the repertoire of Nits. A haunting song that stands out not only musically but also lyrically. Amidst all the darkness of the world, Nits turn away to face the light that remains. Once again we are in the middle of a music of the senses, with descriptions of nature, of a walk of lovers in different landscapes drenched in contrasting colours, a stark opposition of dark and light, white and black and maybe even good and bad. 

In a somewhat atypical style of Nits this song seems to hold an almost spiritual or even religious dimension, while trying to provide some solace and hope. The words “temperance” and “destiny” are key here. Temperance is one of these old virtues that take a central place both in the work of philosophers, from Aristotle to Montaigne and in the writing of spiritual figures. I don’t think it strange really that this word should appear here in this Nits song. Temperance certainly is one of the many Nits virtues, so to speak, if only in the way the band and their work have shunned all sorts of excesses. The result of this temperance being that their music in its constancy and equanimity shows a lot of innate wisdom. It holds the perfect Aristotelian balance, the golden middle way he favoured between the extremes. Living with the music of Nits procures a certain sentiment of wellbeing in my opinion, a sort of knowing how to enjoy world and life in a serene way, which is quite an usual – if I dare to call it “message” for a pop band. Much the opposite of this other famous song about a rising sun – sung by Bob Dylan amongst many others where the house of the rising sun signifies the ruin of many a poor soul. Perhaps Henk Hofstede – in the old biblical tradition of the garden of Eden wanted to write about the lure of all the temptations of life and how to meet them with a tempered mind. Furthermore the musical characteristics of the Nits song “The Rising Sun” make it somehow sound like a prayer or a supplication sung in this high voice of Henk and accompanied by an almost screeching sound coming from the keyboards, almost as if Nits were praying for a ray of light in a dark world, or expressing a sense of hope in the struggles all humans face in this life. With far away reminiscences of the sound of an Indian sitar plea. The song is filled with a sort of awe of destiny, for the mystery of the events that will determine our world and our lives. Regret, fear and wonder form one unified thread in this song. The end verses especially are of a heartbreaking, almost painful beauty: “The long long years – What have we done – We turn our heads – The rising sun”.  At the end … she is still there, always returning, the rising sun… We disappear in the darkness, but the sun will still be rising in the skies …  Those pivotal moments in the passing of the days and nights of our lives are favourite subjects of the tender impressionists that are Nits. The album “Ting” with its autumnal colours chaperoned the setting of the sun in the wonderful song “Nightfall”. And “Les Nuits” yields and makes way for “The Rising Sun” as in a natural turn of the seasons: “To everything – Turn turn turn” … 

It is quite an important song in my opinion full of Nits-meanings, certainly given the fact that it figures on one of Nits’ darkest albums mentioning the murder of Theo Van Gogh. “The Rising Sun” certainly hesitates between light and darkness and it deserves a lot of thought. Nits have never really been a band who express any political views or a dedicated social engagement, but the war and peace divide, and the struggles of humanity during periods of war or other instances of violence on a smaller scale, have certainly been on their mind throughout their musical career. The album with the somewhat misleading, peaceful title “Doing the Dishes”, as if there were no cloud in the sky, features two songs that tell of the heartache of war: “The Flowers” and “In Dutch Fields”. And of course there’s the “angst” chronicle about life in Holland during the German occupation of another infamous war. Nits solely sketch. War impressions are sketched, the songs almost like anti-war paintings, like Picasso’s Guernica. After the denunciation of war in their song “Sketches of Spain”, or of violence in the song “Crime and Punishment”, Nits disprove and rebut the discourse of war and violence by their unfaltering belief in humanity and their enduring optimism and faith in life itself. “The Rising Sun” is such a song of a continuous belief and hope in the day of tomorrow. Flowers, fields, a rising sun … they are all witnesses of bloodshed and chaos. But so they are of hope and beauty, of the renewal of the forces of life. The rising sun is this energetic force of optimism and life so typical of Nits. Its yellow bright light is inscribed in those four letters of the band’s name: NITS. Doesn’t this word bring a sunny smile to your face too …?

Joke Roelandt, June 2024