Of Bits and Neatles

Another time, another place.

Do you know the song “The Beatles and The Stones” by House of Love? It is about all that splits the world in two, about foes and enemies in life and precious, comforting friends in music. If you like to cut corners and get straight to business, you might prefer The Stones and their bright red, thick lips. But if you like to linger and reflect for a while and want to master the slow art of seduction, you might wanna hang out with The Beatles… or with Nits.

Four insignificant letters referring to some kind of little pests hiding in our luscious locks, neatly trimmed hairstyles or unruly curls. These unfriendly parasites nobody wants. And yet when I hear the word “Nits”, I never think of them and even when I force myself to do so, I immediately forget about it two seconds later. The word has been disconnected from its meaning. I mean who still thinks of these fabulous insects when listening to The Beatles? To me the word “NITS” sounds like a square, something bright and yellow, gentle and simple that appears on sunny days, an everyday form which you can see when the sun peeps through the clouds and brightens our dark world with the light of a sweet melancholy. I don’t often get this sort of synesthetic connections from letters or words with colours and shapes, but in this instance I do. Something orderly and humble, yet very clever and ingenious, small of scope and intent, small in numbers, small in size, “pienter” as they say in Dutch, that is what the word “NITS” sounds like to me, what the form of its letters suggests to me. Something basic, yet full of intelligent, sharp-witted details.

I’ve always liked to compare the pop constructions of The Beatles to the compositions of Bach in the classical genre. Although they are written in a very different language, they procure to me, each in their own way, a sense of balanced wonder and a harmonious feeling-good-in-the-world kind of attitude. Bach stands for order and balance, for a world of intricacies that always end up falling in the exact, right place, numbers that always add up to the right sum, a world where nothing would ever fall out of place and where everything is gonna be alright. The Beatles create pop songs with the same eye and ear for balance and harmony, for perfected forms in music. For light, tender or spirited melodies, which might come across as simple, but are full of genius. The elegance of simplicity… I like playing these games in my head, comparing pop artists to classical composers. I’d align Nits perhaps most of all with the French composer Claude Debussy, maybe because of their shared impressionistic flair and sense of wandering imagination. 

But sometimes order needs chaos, order meets chaos. Like in the work of Jackson Pollock. His style of creating was so uncontrolled and free, chaotic even, but still, when you look at his works you don’t get the impression of total chaos, no there seems to be some sort of order in the chaos. I often get lost in “messy”, unruly, rowdy guitar songs that confuse me like I was a comb trying to untangle a mass of curly hair; I guess I’m just not that fond of those hard guitar songs. “Tomorrow never knows” is one of these songs that evoke to me this sense of order in chaos, which I like a lot. I like songs that structure our experience of the world and transfer it to clear melodies and rhythms, which is precisely what Nits do. When I heard this song live for the first time as played by Nits, I’m sure my mouth must have dropped open with amazement. It was like hearing The Beatles. Masterful how the sly and sleek order of “Aloha Drums” fits the roaring noise and racket of “Tomorrow never Knows”. Listen to and watch the precision in the chaos! Henk plays and handles his guitar with such poise and calm; a pleasure to watch! Robert Jan and Rob treating their instruments with a studious accurateness and disciplined calculation, resulting in a wild sound that erupts and breaks free from these well-ordered “manipulations”. The transition between the two songs is so neat and tidy, so skilfully executed, the ending leaving you with the satisfied feeling that all has been said and done; it’s as if these two songs were made for each other… Well, you just have to listen for yourself…

The kinship between The Beatles and Nits has always been very obvious to me, I cannot name any other band that has produced as many songs of simple genius as Nits and The Beatles, songs which portray the simple facts of life, songs about boys and girls, celebrating life, relationships, everyday things, mingled with an elegant, sometimes surreal imagination and brought with brio, and a spontaneous nonchalance. I mean if The Beatles were playing a Nits song would you notice the difference, would it fall out of tune? Would you spot straight away that it wasn’t a song of their own… ? It would be nice to hear John Lennon sing “J.O.S. Days”, no?, as if he were a lad from Amsterdam. And Paul McCartney “The Bauhaus Chair” (that is still possible…). And hear Ringo’s “lazy”, nonchalant, heavy, meaty drumming intrude into the “Port of Amsterdam”. Hofstede could have written “Penny Lane”… well, maybe he did, sort of, with the unsurpassed “Dapperstreet”. Of course McCartney never would have written a song about a Bauhaus Chair. Nits have perhaps a more intellectual side to them, which The Beatles lack; the latter boast this typical down-to-earth, empirical, practical nature of the British in the way they look at the world. Nits certainly share this attitude in many ways, but they add a touch of the idealism (of forms) expressed in the arts and a sense of reflective poetry which The Beatles almost never embrace. Could it simply be the difference between being a Liverpudlian and being born and bred in Mokum…?

My favourite Beatles song is “Dig a Pony”. I wonder what it might sound like in the colours and shapes of present-day Amsterdam…

Joke Roelandt, October 2019