My warmest congratulations to the whole Nits team on the occasion of the Edison Lifetime Achievement Award 2025 for pop music which they received at the Carré theatre in Amsterdam last Friday. If ever there was a pop band whose music told the story of a lifetime, whose music recorded the unrelenting explorations of the art of sound and words in the pop song whilst continuously reshaping and expanding the boundaries of the pop genre – even replacing its centre to the heart of Europe – and connecting the music to a myriad of other art forms like the visual and plastic arts, theatre and literature … without ever even for one second forgetting what is at the core of pop music: the freedom and rebellion, joy and lightness of its sounds… This music that wants to be close to the tactility of all that surrounds us, that wants to let us listen to the beauty of what our eyes and soul can see and perceive, thus making us feel at home in the world.
This plasticity of their music became their unique trademark. It comes in many shapes and forms just like our world.
In the margins of this celebratory moment I wrote down a very personal commentary on the events, which you can read on my website that contains my ongoing reflections on this one-of-a-kind band. Not knowing whom to address, I wrote it to the music gods … just in case …

50 Shapes of Nits: So … of course … the 42nd shape is the statuette of the Edison Lifetime Achievement Award for Pop 2025

Alone In The World Of Nits – A Secret Letter To The Music Gods

I wasn’t there last Friday at Carré. I guess you could say my absence was due to personal reasons as the standard line goes; that might indeed be the right word since I think that no one could even begin to understand why I had no other choice but to stay home that night. But then out of nowhere something dropped into my lap. It was the cutest sound bar of a recording made just minutes before of the song “Jardin d’Hiver”. I later found out it was the opener of that memorable evening at Carré. An opening song that couldn’t be more Nits, tender, melancholic and somewhat lonesome in more than one sense of the word, translating a particular view of the world into a song. And the French words that Henk Hofstede sings  – a quote from the song by fellow Belgian Adamo “Tombe La Neige” – sounded very comforting to me: “Tu ne viendras pas ce soir”… I think I even cried a little.

When I saw the complete setlist after hearing this little jewel of an opener, I must admit I was a little disappointed and I was immediately reminded of one of the myriad of reasons why I was not there in the audience. I knew that even amidst this crowd of people who like me adore Nits, I would still feel very much alone. Not that the songs Nits played, aren’t any good – they are of course all excellent compositions, but where are all these quiet beauties of their oeuvre that no one ever shouts about? As a regular visitor of their concerts over decades, there weren’t that many songs on the setlist really that I had not heard before several times. And that is of course completely normal. The laws of the numbers of popularity, familiarity and ease, often favouring the less complex or difficult songs, are ruling the democratic world of music too. And it never fails to make me sad. Where was “Moon Moon” this unsung GIANT NORMAL DWARF miniature … all these years? Where were “Chain Of Ifs” from 1974, “Vah Hollanda Seni Seni” from ADIEU SWEET BAHNHOF, “Angel of Happy Hour” and “The Darling Stone” from WOOL, “Hands of the Watch”, from WORK, “Sleep (what Happens Now to Your Eyes)” from HENK, or its “Pillow Talk”, “One Eye Open” and “Moon & Stars from the mountains album, “The Hat” from HAT …? “White Night” or “St-Louis Avenue” from TING, “The Hole” or “The Rising Sun” from LES NUITS, “Tannenbaum” or “Paper”, “The Light”, “Heart of Mine” or “Robinson”, or “Fantasies and Factories” to hark back to where it all began … – the list is long – where were they all these years? Digging for Nits … and then unearthing all these buried treasures that like most of their songs stand so close to the experience of living, tell so much about a lived-in world, about all that surrounds us, and then turn the rivers, clouds, raindrops and tears, smiles into songs – “Weiter geht es nicht”; Yes where was “Zündapp Nach Oberheim” from ANGST, the song that lays bare the secret of the music of Nits – “The river is a synthesizer” … There was of course more than enough musical beauty to make for a spectacular evening of songs. And Nits certainly tried to shake things up a bit.

When I looked up at my screen and saw the images on stage, all I could see was this giant storybook of world and life, picturing all the lines, shapes and figures the flowing imagination can draw whilst telling the tale of living-in-the-world. It fits the music to a tee. So why do I hear this eminent radio voice say that he doesn’t always see the connection between the pictures and the music – even if he was just joking a little?! Why look for a comparison in the Japanese art of glass when the clues lie there just in front of your nose, in the centre of a town full of the works of the old Dutch masters, bathing in the spirit of Europe, inside your own being, in the intimate world of the senses, in the world of home and family, in the clear and limpid language, the artfully formed tongue, the language of light, colour and lightness that the music of Nits speaks most eloquently. Why?! Why does everyone agree with the same old clichés we are always fed by those who are given a voice? Why in another obvious enumeration of their “best” songs do we always start and stop with the usual suspects of “In the Dutch Mountains”, “Nescio”, “JOS Days”; is our taste in music so limited, and also governed by numbers, by what is most popular? Isn’t that a little easy and superficial? Is there not more to it? Where art and life mingle so perfectly as one …
Sadly the full genius of Nits might never be discovered. If you are not digging deeper into the archeological layers of the successive albums and get your hands dirty a little, stray off the easier paths mostly taken, you will never find the true hidden gems along with all their meanings and musical and philosophical identity and relevance.

Dear Orpheus, Apollo and Euterpe, wouldn’t you agree? Should we not lend a closer ear to these most intimate miniatures of poetry in music…?

I’d like to congratulate Nits with the Lifetime Achievement Edison Award. And I join the ranks of the many who wrote that it is a much deserved recognition … at last. I thank the whole Nits team for cultivating this musical garden of beauty, joy, freedom and wisdom throughout more than five decades.

Joke Roelandt, Affligem BE, 7th October 2025

“Jardin d’hiver”, Carré Amsterdam, 3rd October 2025, courtesy of Nits and Stefan Horlitz.