It all started with a piano loop.

Well, that's not entirely true. As with basically all of the songs I write for myself, it started with a sense of dissatisfaction. Of needing to get something out of my system. I've always known myself to be damaged goods, to some extent, and even though I'm now pushing 43 and have made some decent repairs along the way, I was recently confronted with how much of it still remains. Unseen, a lot of the time, but once you do see it...

"Er is een tijd van komen, en een tijd van gaan" - There's a time for arriving and a time for leaving, a Dutch saying acknowledging the inevitability of all things coming to an end. And the time has come to say goodbye to a part of me that I can't unsee.

So standing in the shower a little over a week ago, this one bar of piano melody popped up and played itself on loop in my head. I don't know where the words came from exactly, but the lyrics (translation below) basically wrote themselves over the course of a week, and the music based on that one bar of piano evolved with it. I've never made a rap track before and I'm not a huge hip hop fan, but I've always appreciated the Beastie Boys, fell in love with Peter Fox's Stadtaffe when my sister sent me a copy over a decade back, got blown away by Aesop Rock's storytelling when YouTube presented me with an analysis of one of his songs a year or two ago and rediscovered 't Hof van Commerce in the meantime - so it's not like I stepped in completely blind. And with it weighing so heavily on me over the course of a week and a half, recording and producing the thing in its entirety today felt liberating.

So here's a monologue/rant from the person I want to be to the person in me making all the wrong decisions. So long, and thanks for all the fish. Now please get the fuck out of here and let me do things my way, thanks.

I remember you saying it wasn't too long ago that I tore down everything that had long since been professed

That I had ruined your destiny and that I uninhibitedly beat it, but outside of your view

Under the early light of a newly rising sun I started realizing this bullshit wouldn't stand anymore

I was small, dumb and broken, the door locked and the key buried on the bottom of a jar of marbles

That I had all failed to bring in, if you manage to get so lost in your own story you'll be blind

To the marbles you have already conquered as a kid, and you soon wouldn't give a nickel for the game anymore

Grew up by remaining small, experience first hand how wondrous life is

Even when you leave the rudder and the determination of the course to someone who simply only stayed small

I know you feel abandoned, but do you realize how easy it is for you to say

When you don't see the situation as a loss but instead act like the blood's already been let

I needed you, plenty of reasons to believe I'd never get to the bottom of things

And you, you saw your opportunity and simply acted like the throne had already fallen and took control

The trees for which I couldn't see the forest anymore would but for your behavior never have grown this enormously tall

But you weren't interested in forestry and unchecked you became the new world order

You know it's a fact that the clock only ticks forward and clearly the day of change is presenting itself

And I can't do anything but grab that chance with both hands, the time is right and I'm going to burst your bubble, friend

Let it go, cast off that misery

Let it go, time is much too short

I'm on my way, and we'll go on together

When you wake up tomorrow

And now's the time to say goodbye to you, with your brilliant ideas you just didn't want to make time for

With your important questions about things that I stirred up, that strike me where nowadays I don't want to be struck any longer

To the idea that I've had to wait so long on the strength that can finally soothe this insidious pain

To the shame, the despair, the obsession, it's about damn time you left because you don't know your place

And to the carelessness with you are living MY life, I can only truly be satisfied once this hurdle has been taken

And to you, forced to remain standing here with shaking knees, mate: there's a time for arriving...

OK, since you've made it this far into the story, here's a little background on the lyrics. I translated them into English as literally as possible, taking into account the meaning would still be left intact - I think it makes for an awful story like this, a lot less coherent than in its native Dutch although that too still benefits from a little artistic license. Much as with Aes' lyrics, the focus is on slapping sound together to make for a good cadence built from barrages of similarly sounding syllables whilst trying to remain as true to a natural rhyme scheme as possible.

The first verse is the narrator looking at themselves, at where they are and where they've come from. How, despite their alter ego having made other plans, continued to resist and never fully relinquished the controls. Another Dutch proverb goes "It's not about the marbles, it's about the game" - it's not the results that matter, but rather the journey towards them. I've lately used this as framing device for my own life, as I was raised to only care about the marbles, and am now programmed to only see the ones that I haven't won yet - a tough habit to break. The second to last line starts with an old slogan from one of our national banks, which more accurately translates to "achieved greatness by remaining small (i.e. humble, approachable)", comparing the narrator who has actually developed themselves to their counterpart that obviously didn't.

The second verse starts exposing the alter ego's flaws. The coping mechanisms one develops always serve a purpose at the time of their creation, but if the leash is too long they'll end up fucking things up instead. Another proverb in there - not seeing the forest for the trees, which is literally also used in Dutch. I was pleased linking it to forestry, the act of controlling what you're cultivating.

The subsequent interlude is basically the narrator gearing themselves up to take a stand, which gets outlined in the third verse. A decision has been made, and it's time for a new chapter. The aspect about the lyrics that pleases me the most is in the last line: I considered including the proverb in the lyrics entirely, but decided against it in the end, changing its mood of solace into an implication of welcome being overstayed. And the beauty lies in the fact that the first half of the proverb rhymes (genomen - komen), but if you were to add the unspoken second half, it still does (staan - gaan).

Thank you for reading and listening - it has been a cathartic and almost ritualistic process for me, and I hope it manages to inspire you.

Peace,

D