The Girl Who Never Made It

“Forget me not!” Henk Hofstede repeatedly sings at the end of Espresso Girl. And I never forgot her. She is at the centre of one of my favourite Nits songs. She is a beauty no-one notices and that is a great pity indeed. And on top of that she features on an album that hardly anyone likes… She is following the band The Cure; so she’s got good taste too. I must have heard this song live once at one of the Nits concerts I attended, because I remember Henk telling the story of a girl who was sort of a groupie following Robert Smith and his Cure, taking photographs all the time. Henk’s story was more detailed than this – I wish I could remember all that he told us – and I loved his tale of the coffee drinking girl, probably wearing black eye liner and a jeans with Robert’s name on …

I particularly cherish the lyrics of the song, I honestly think they are amongst Henk’s finest. With the imported names of German (and Swiss) cities and places, borrowed sounds, and the way these proper names wade through the song – with the addition of a few German words – they lend it some beautifully crafted rectangular lines and aesthetic shapes. The German articulations break the soft monotony of the English words, they draw your attention and make your mind travel along rivers and to cities you’ve never been; the Espresso girl is very European in nature. The atmosphere is rational and poetic at the same time – a feeling I often get with German words or music in particular. It has the cold shiver of December snow – with so many blues – but at the same time Henk’s lyrics express an endearing affection and tenderness for someone that he might have seen just occasionally and made this story around – I don’t even know if she’s real. With the Nits charm of a “little blue flower in a button hole”.

The Espresso Girl, to me, certainly is a very sophisticated song. It has some exquisite moments that are all different from one another, with elements from both jazz and French classical music. It’s such a varied song, around a little fascinating figure, one of my favourite characters that Henk Hofstede created in his lyrics. And still, if you‘re not convinced by the words, maybe Robert Jan’s dazzling keyboard display – on caffeine and silk – might pull you over. Like a caterpillar boy his hands move along the piano keys.

The song has wonderful dynamics too, how it suddenly falls into a sweetly reminiscing melancholy that hides in the prosody and the timbre of Henk’s voice: “My face in the mirror of Hotel Krafft – Behind me the boats on the Rhine in Bâle…”, the music almost disappearing into oblivion, the piano whispering its riverlike melody… Listen to this moment, it’s just so beautiful. The river where paths from present and past intertwine. A blue tapestry as witness of time passing. Yes, maybe – out of all his songs – these are Henk Hofstede’s most beautifully written lyrics… expressing the melancholy of the senses, enshrouded in the concrete forms, shapes and colours of life.

All about a girl who never made it to the Nitsfans’ lists of favourite songs … 

Forget me not.

Joke Roelandt, January 2023