The Musical Renown of a Swimmer

50 Shapes of Nits: The 21st shape is the tornado of shirts and towels

The opening notes and the opening verse of The Swimmer are nothing short of a class act. If there were a canon of most beautiful first lines of pop songs, this verse would certainly feature in it: ”Here comes the replay of an old dream – I was dreaming when I was a small boy – Turn around – Turn around” … It was one of those Nits moments that stuck with me since I first heard it. A moment that defines perfectly who Nits are. If asked for my favourites from the album In The Dutch Mountains, my reply would not contain the title song (although I do love it a lot), nor would it list “J.O.S. Days” (my first acquaintance with Nits), but this dream of a boy caught up in a dryer, in a tornado of shirts and towels would be an evident choice.

It brings back straightaway this unmatched reaction that I felt during those honeymoon weeks of discovering my first album of Nits, as if this song struck all the chords of my young soul all at once. It was an unforgettable experience that never since had its equal: a young melancholy of a magically sweet nature which Nits does best. And at the same time the song sounds like a prestigious form of poetry sung, it’s got depth, panache, excellence, stature and authority. It’s in a class of its own! And the music in awe of so much beauty in the opening lines just decides to contribute a little imitation of the swirling movement of the dryer and the water escaping, streaming out and filling the room, a majestic footnote as it were to the narration of the dream only to recede again, making way for the young boy to continue his moving story of his dream. This is first rate storytelling in a wonderful musical fantasy which is not afraid to sort of mimic the tale of the dream. This self-evident nature of the ingenious way of Nits of making music, is something that I still find extraordinary. A little kitchen scene taking on the proportions of a spellbinding musical wonder.

I remember that the words “in a tornado of shirts and towels” had spoken to me in a very vivid and unusual way. I thought it was quite an uncommon way of expressing the fear in the dream, I mean the juxtaposition of this high class melody that was so rich in meanings and the “aristocratic” utterance by Henk Hofstede on the one hand, with those everyday words of towels and shirts on the other. I wrote the lines down, to feel their magic in my own hands. I was really impressed and the Nits spell had enchanted me for good. This was what I had wanted to hear in a song! And there it was … Song after song the same magic unveiled itself to me and I was hooked … still until this very day … the magic has not waned …

Once more, after “Under A Canoe” – this other heavenly spell of writing about a swimmer – the danger came from the water … And there again was a shirt too … just waving in the meadow … Someone in this Nits world of rain and snow, of canals, lakes and rivers, of fish, a swimming pool and an aquarium, of the rowing boat and a canoe … was afraid of water …

In their own peculiar way of doing darkness and angst, there’s always something warm or tender to comfort you, be it in the words of Hofstede or in the music of this attentive, empathic band. This world of water and wind, of shirts and towels and meadows that I could picture and experience up close in a riveting piece of music, was where I decided to stay. The mystery of the natural elements and the dream only equalled by the mystery of the music.

Joke Roelandt, February 2025