Every year, Gerard van Maasakker features quite a few songs in the Brabant Top 100. The songwriter from Nuenen now lives in Flemish Ghent, but still makes music in Brabant. He is proud of his Brabant accent: ‘I just think it’s beautiful.’
You could call him purveyor to the court. In 2022 he was in the list of the most beautiful music from our province with 6 songs.
“When I hear that voting is possible again, I am always curious about my own worth. Am I still counting?” He says this in the Omroep Brabant radio program Brabants Bont to presenter Hubert Mol. But every year he is still in the Brabant Top 100 with a large number of songs.
“Do I still count?”
Van Maasakkers would not call himself a dialect singer. “The dialect has never been an end in itself. Brabantish is simply my first language,” he explains. “I only learned Dutch later. When I started 35 years ago, I noticed that I can express myself best in Brabantish.”
The songs he makes now sound different than when he started. “No, the words don’t sound as Brabant as they used to be, but I do cherish my Brabant accent. I think it’s beautiful and nice to use. And it still works well for me.”
“I first learned Brabantish, only then Dutch.”
He wouldn’t call himself a troubadour either. “I never liked that term, it always reminds me of the Middle Ages,” he says with a laugh.
“I get the inspiration for my songs from my own life. Last year I made a song, ‘Making coffee’, which is about dementia. I am now starting to encounter this in my own circle of acquaintances and then I think I should do something with it.”
“Behind the barn is now topical again.”
When asked which song of his own that he would like to see in the Brabant Top 100, Van Maasakkers answers: ‘Behind the shed’. “That is now topical again. In a different way than when I wrote it.” The song is about a farmer’s son who hears that the farm has to be sold because it is no longer financially viable.
Van Maasakkers: “The song touches the present enormously. I definitely think there needs to be a change in the way we interact with the world, so there definitely needs to be tough measures. But I immediately think of young people who wanted to take over the farm but can no longer do so. What should they do now? It’s about people’s dreams and whether they can make them come true.”
Do you want to vote for the Brabant Top 100? You can do that until May 16 omroepbrabant.nl/top 100. The list will be broadcast on Ascension Day, May 18 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.