NITSTOPIA: A Plausible World

(Nits, The Movie part 2)

Do you know the story about John Lennon’s little boy Julian? How one day – after school – he showed his dad a drawing he made, which he had called “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”? It inspired John Lennon to write the song by the same name and to come up with the lyrics referring to a world of wonder and daydreaming. The said lyrics of Lennon have always reminded me of those written by Henk Hofstede in the song “In the Dutch Mountains”. “Picture yourself in a boat on a river. – With tangerine trees and marmalade skies”. It all resembles a world of childlike drawings, where the natural world is populated with animated characters and a child’s sense of fantasy is transposed upon the elements that constitute it. It is the language of Lewis Carroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter” enacted in a fantastical world. The words of the songs float amongst the clouds in a dreamlike vision of the world of a child. The songs of Nits tell stories that suit the world of animation where pines are whispering, mountains fall asleep and a crab nibbles your feet, perfectly …
A comparison between the lyrics of Nits and The Beatles allows for all sorts of correspondences which translate a sense of living in a world, seen through the eyes of a child or a young person, even a sense of a play world perhaps, with often a naive and innocent perspective being taken by the lyricist, nothing ever taken too seriously. Together with the freshness of sound which has always defined both these bands, the innocent wordings have often lent themselves perfectly to a world of animated stories with figures and adventures of fantasy. Nits shape worlds with dreamlike places in the way The Beatles did with Strawberry Fields, the wooded gardens of which had fascinated young Lennon.

In the song “Flowershop Forget-Me-Not, Henk Hofstede recaptures the image of the “cellophane flowers {in yellow and green}” from the drawing-inspired song by John Lennon. Henk writes about life in a simple language made of images favoured by a child – flowers, castles, dinosaurs and butterflies -, made of names and places that helped to lay down the foundations of the Nits world, of artists who show similar ideas in their way of working, who had some kind of influence on the way of thinking of Nits or whose personalities were just intriguing. Penny Lane and Arnold Grove are revisited during Nits’ walk though life where they bump into John and Yoko. It is like a movie where images of the concrete world of both bands come together in patchwork sequences of moving pictures. It’s a movie I would like to see realised one day, filled with the intertextuality in which Henk Hofstede’s lyrics excel, an intertextuality between artists and the objects they portrayed, the images and words they privileged. Penny Lane still brings me back to the days when I played with my Fisher Price toys: the little town in colourful plastics with the barber shop and the fire station.

“Picture yourself in a {yellow} boat on a {chocolate} river”. If I had a child, I’d tell her the story of Nitstopia. I’d collect all the tales written in the lyrics of all the albums by Nits and I’d read them as bedtime stories. I’d show her the pictures, the drawings made by Henk, the sleeves with photographs or geometrical forms, the colourful, fairy-tale world of Nitstopia. With the adventures of little creatures, little men making their way through life, through the world lighted by the sun and the moon that show off its beauty in a multitude of different colours and shapes. About the imaginary friendships and kinship between artists from all realms of creativity. Nitstopia is essentially a sequence of moving images showing people and things, places and times that make up the intimacy of a life. It is neither a utopia, nor a dystopia, rather it makes up a reality as it is lived by the body and soul of an individual, with everything and everyone one meets that is of any importance, a reality which includes dreams and longings, yes especially the longings; Nitstopia is nestled firmly in the experience of growing up and trying to keep the childlike, fresh and optimistic, lively vision and attitude of youth. At school, one of the very first things the little person is taught or encouraged to do is draw, work with colours and lines and shapes on white paper,  trying to recreate the world in all innocence. That is Nitstopia. These first drawings always refined and beautified, perfected into musical lines and poetical wordings. A world where love is in the eyes.

Imagine :

The ballad of John, Yoko and Nits. Drumpart by Ringo (or was it Paul?): the first scene opens when Henk, Rob and Robert Jan decide to go and visit John and Yoko at their Hilton suite in Amsterdam. The other Beatles fly in. Sitting together – away from the cameras – the eight of them talk, music secrets are discussed and passed on. Since they all get along so well, they make a trip together to Paris, to climb the Eiffel Tower and take in the view. Seeing the beauty of the European city spread out beneath them, promises are made to John, Paul, George and Ringo: Nits will further absorb this European soul and its embodiment in all sorts of cultural expressions, in their own work. (Later on Henk will return to the place with his daughter to create one of his most beautiful songs). Next they take the train to Vienna, where they make the acquaintance of a certain mister Tannenbaum. In Vienna they eat chocolate cake and mix with other artists at the cafe Hawelka. The mood is amical and the days spent together will cement their connection for years to come. “All these places had their moments” in the movie of Nitstopia. This is the chapter where the album Strawberry Wood – amongst others – took shape.
Nits made similar connections with a great many artists from all walks of creative life. The albums of Nits are full of images that speak of the intertextuality of the work of artists, of encounters of artists across the time and space divide. That is Nitstopia in full bloom. 
Of course Nitstopia also houses lots of sweet objects, paraphernalia, musical instruments and tools, houses and buildings, inspiring works of art and views of cities and landscapes stretching for ever along rivers, canals, meadows and reeds, with clouds that look like sheep showing the way to the Dutch Mountains. In Nitstopia life is lived to the fullest, in an innocently romantic way and mediated by an artistic nature that is always grounded in an original and authentic experience of life itself. A place where the world is one and everything is connected, where fantasy is a part of reality and art is a second nature not very different from the original. It’s good (and fun) to live this way. I wish I could too, continue for ever incorporating this childlike, lively energy of unspoiledness into a way of being.
“Let me take you down …” … to Nitstopia, … my little one.

Joke Roelandt, November 2023