Music Review

Het is een nacht, Guus Meeuwis & Vagant, 29 july 1995

Marloes van Dam

4VD
20-1-2016
1

Preparation
Gustaaf Stephanus Modestus (Guus) Meeuwis, born on 23th of March 1972, is a Dutch singer
and songwriter.
After Guus spend a romantic weekend with his girlfriend Valrie in Brugge he wrote the song
Het is een nacht (Levensecht). He and his friends won in 1994 the first AHCStudentensongfestival at the ALSV Quintus in Leiden with this song and got offered a record
deal by Willem van Schijndel.
His biggest hit was Het is een nacht. And he scored several hits as part of the band
Vagant.
The style of the music is Nederpop this means that it is pop music written in Dutch by artists
and bands.
Pop music is a contraction of popular music. It is a collective noun for multiple styles in the
music which is focused on the popularity and not in particular on the diversity of the music.

First impressions

Love
Adventure
Late nights with friends
Beer
Sex

Description
In the first 14 seconds of the song you will only hear the sound of a guitar, this guitar will keep
on going the whole song, and the beat and the tempo will remain the same until the first
refrain starts. Before the refrain starts you will hear a great texture with a quit lowly pitched
voice which remains constant. The metre of this part of the song is fours. When the refrain
starts the guitar will make a new beat with a faster tempo this means that the rhythm
changes, because of the change of rhythm tension is build up toward the end of the song. The
metre changes from fours into twos which makes the lowly pitched voice turn into a faster
voice. Because of this the dynamics also change; in the beginning the mood they
communicated was not very happy but when the refrain starts the mood of the singer
changes and that is why I believe he start singing louder. In this part of the song you will also
hear the first influence of the rest of the band as they start singing along. After the refrain the
composer still wanted to build op the tension and he wanted to use some variety to keep in
interested so he put in a piano. In this part you can really hear the texture used, the voices
are on the first layer as you will hear them the best. The second layer consist of the piano and
the third of the guitar. I believe they used this layering to achieve an expressive effect, to
make it more powerful. At the end of the music when the text is finished you hear again an
instrument playing, at this part you hear a piano which is lowering its pitch, also called a
decrescendo. In the song there are multiple transition which make the timbral changes of the
sounds easier. Those transition are also used as a repetition after each couplet.

Analysis

Variation is created, as I already mentioned in the description, by the different use of

instruments and the difference in pitches. In the first couplet the voice is very lowly
pitched and when the refrain starts this changes totally which makes it very interesting
to listen to since I think variation in a song is nice.
The tension in the music is created by going from a lowly pitched voice to a more
energetic and louder voice. The song does not really come to a climax, however it does
have a sort of resolution in which the voice is again been reduced to a lowly pitched
voice and makes you feel a bit relaxed again. This is why I think it is a very good end.
The musicians try to get your attention by trying to reach your heart. They do this by
singing the things which are very close to you softly and the part where people should
really enjoy they start singing louder. The composer which is really the same person as
one of the musicians tried to get your attention to make this song close to people, he
wrote about something to which almost everyone can relate to.
Syncopation is involved in this song as they put emphasize in the part after the refrain
on the second and fourth count, they do this to create some variation and to make it
more interesting.
I believe the tonality used is actually minor since they do not really sound happy while
singing. The composer just wants to tell you about his night he has experienced. And
he does not really want to bring a really happy message across.
As I already explained in the description there is absolutely made use of harmony in
this song. Already in the first couplet you will hear the guitar and the voice
simultaneously and after the refrain is sang you will hear the piano, the voice and the
guitar at the same time.
I believe the style of this music is really folk music since almost everyone knows this
song, even though the singer is known I still believe this can be represented as folk
music.

Interpretation
When I listen to this song at the beginning I start to feel relax because of the rhythm which is
used and created by the guitar. And start to sing along since I know this song by hard. When
Guus starts to explain about the situation in which he is, I think that he just had sex since he
says: Op de vloer ligt een lege fles wijn en kledingstukken die van jou of mij kunnen zijn.
After the first refrain the song is a throwback to the morning, he did not know what he was
going to do that morning and when he left with the girl, where they were going to end. Which I
believe refers to an adventure since you never know what a day will bring. The last impression
which really refers back to the song is love, I believe this song is all about love and that is why
I picked this impression.
There are still 2 impressions left which do not really refer back to the song but are my
memories to this song. The first one is late nights with my friends, this is really the best
memory to this story since every night when I am with my friends and we are having a party
we will play this song and everyone will sing along.

When I was 12 I used to listen to nederpop with my dad and his best friend, so every time I
listen to that kind of music I think of them drinking some beer and really having fun together.
Two years ago for my birthday I even went to Holland zingt Hazes which is the same genre
and everyone who was there was also drinking beer and having some really great fun. And
last year when I was riding a rally with my dad in Brabant, organised by this same best friend,
they also played this song and everyone again was drinking beer. So because of those
memories I think of beer when listening to this song.

Gathering background information

Guus Meeuwis was born in the local monastery of Mariahout where his parents were living
temporarily. He went to the Lorentz Casimir Lyceum and after that he studied law wat the
University of Tilburg. After a romantic weekend with his girlfriend he wrote the song Het is
een nacht. Because of the record deal which he got offered by Willem van Schijndel, he and
his friends started the group; Guus Meeuwis & Extravagant. Extravagant was the name of
their favourite caf. In this group you had Marc Meewis, Jan Willem Rozenboom, Hugo van
Bilsen, Robin van Beek and Dirk Oerlemans.
Guus Meeuwis & Extravagant made three albums; Verbazing (1996),
Schilderij (1997) and Voor Allen (2001)
In 2001 Guus Meeuwis continued on as a solo artist since the group
decided to split.
Meeuwis was appointed in 2013 as Knight in the Order of
Orange-Nassau.

Informed judgment
Since I have already listened to this song so often I do not really believe my impressions can
be changed. I still think about sex, love and adventure when hearing this song and I still have
great memorys to this song with my friends. Also after all this analysing I believe this song
should be listened to when you are with a lot of people, because I think it is mainly folk music.
I do not really think this song is a very good song but that people should just gather for this
song and sing it. This song is more a sing song than a listening song and that is why I like it.

Sources
- https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guus_Meeuwis - https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Het_is_een_nacht..._%28Levensecht%29 - https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederpop - https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popmuziek -