Comedian Jan Beuving sings his best work in Groningen, Meppel and Drachten: ‘Ultimately I am a storyteller’

Jan Beuving (Numansdorp, 1982) won two Annie MG Schmidt Prizes and a Willem Wilmink Prize for his song lyrics. ‘Brilliant and groundbreakingly beautiful’, wrote Jacques J. d’Ancona in his five-star review of Beuving’s program Remnant. ‘Mastery in every genre’, judged Het Parool.

Colleagues such as Paul de Leeuw, Simone Kleinsma, Huub Stapel and Richard Groenendijk make grateful and frequent use of Beuving’s writing talent. That commissioned work, just like the work for his own programs, can be found in Checkered blues, the recently published collection of all his song texts plus explanations.

In ‘Resumé 1’ you sing a selection of your best work. How did you arrive at this selection?

“Yes, good question. That’s where the program starts; it was almost impossible. I think there are about 85 texts in it Checkered blues and there is room for 17 in the performance. I more or less immediately dropped the commissioned work. Then I had seven or eight top players who had to go in anyway. And of course I wanted to do something mathematical, because with my background as a mathematician I did a lot of that stuff early in my career. You also pay attention to the rhythm of the performance: we have something long, we have something lyrical, we have something short and funny. So then you just add a little bit: what else do we have to do?”

Many of your lyrics, you write in ‘Ruitjesblues’, are written within the context of a program. Sometimes they refer to each other or to a conference in the same show.

“Exactly, that is also the reason why, for example, everything from the program about the Tax Authorities, which I made with Patrick Nederkoorn, was lost. I was fine Notional rental value can sing, but I prefer to sing Fermat. It has the same rhyming gimmick, but with a mathematical subject. The song also testifies to my love for the work of Drs. P, to whose Death ride it is certainly indebted.”

What makes a subject suitable to sing about?

“For me it always starts with reality. With something I read, with a story I hear. Or I experience something. And then there’s a moment where I think: this is a song. Just like Willie Wortel, a light bulb goes on when he has a good idea. What I then do is in fact stylize reality.”

And those topics can come from all angles?

“Yes, sometimes you hardly have to do anything. For example, look at a song like Saturday morning, about a mother with breast cancer. That’s literally a rhymed blog post from that woman. I haven’t changed or added anything to it. In other cases there is only a core, a starting point, around which I create a story. And those topics sometimes come from mathematics, from books. You come to a birthday or a funeral. Ultimately, of course, I am a storyteller and is Checkered blues a collection of stories. Only my form is not the short story, but the song.”

With all the associated rules of rhythm and rhyme.

“When you write a song, you impose rules on yourself. And actually, the more rules there are, the more creative you have to become. I’m really a craftsman when it comes to rhyming. And I am convinced that people will feel it when you put that craft into it.”

Aren’t those pearls before swine? There are plenty of people who like to listen to André Hazes Jr.

“Compare it to a carpenter who likes dovetail joints. To fit two wooden parts together in this way, you have to saw and sand them perfectly. But then you also have a great connection that will never loosen. Of course there are others who say: ‘That’s too complicated for me, I’ll secure it with duct tape.’ Yes, then it is also stuck, but I think that is a shame. I don’t want one leg of my chair taped up.”

With you, technology and the ability to move seem to go together effortlessly.

“I like it if it all technically meets, let’s say, more or less the standards of Drs. P, Kees Torn and Ivo de Wijs meets the requirements. But Jurrian van Dongen, who taught at the Koningstheateracademie and is one of our best song lyricists, really pulled me out of that armor of meter and rhyme. He showed me that there is much more: ‘Go listen to Stephen Sondheim or Maarten van Roozenzaal.’ What he was actually saying is that every story needs a different form. You must ensure that the technology is always subordinate to the message. The trick is, when it really comes down to it, to let go of the rigid accountant within yourself and to think: now what needs to be said simply needs to be said.”

And then the message must also be one hundred percent correct. I refer to the godwits in your song ‘Striep’, which plays on Terschelling.

“I had sung more than a hundred performances: ‘The godwits are looking for cockles in the mud’. Then one evening Rob Chrispijn was in the audience – the great songwriter for Herman van Veen, among others, and a great bird expert. “Nice performance,” he said. ‘Only one thing: godwits don’t eat cockles.’ More than a hundred performances! And no one had ever pointed it out to me. From that moment on I sang: ‘The bar-tailed godwits are pecking in the mud.’ I love those kinds of corrections.”