We all have a nightmare we relive, and Francois van Coke just happens to have written a song about his.
From personal experience, some things haunt you from your past. And the journey you are currently on brings both the good and the bad of times gone by. Also, the constant fight for balance between what is real and what is AI these days is daily. It’s easy to press a few buttons now to make music with AI, and yet the traditional way of writing music still feels like the better kind — both to listen to and to perform live.
“Bye Bye Baby” is a hook that will create an earworm for days. The song live is so good, you can almost hear yourself singing it in your car on the way home from a Francois van Coke show. To me, the song is a taste of what is to come from Francois’s future releases (one of six for this year). On a personal note, it’s a bit of a theme song at this stage of my life. Thanks for that.
The song was written with longtime collaborator, Fred den Hartog (you might know him from Die Heuwels Fantasties). Francois van Coke tells the story behind “Nagmerries (Bye Bye Baby)”:
“I have a recurring nightmare that regularly takes me back to an uncomfortable time in my life. I’m trying to let go of that time and nightmare with this song. Since I’ve written it, the nightmare hasn’t been back, so maybe it’s helping.
This song was also written at a time of the birth of Afrikaans AI artists, so I’m also dissecting humanity’s obsession with technology in some of the lyrics.”
We recommend you add “Nagmerries” to your liked songs and enjoy it whenever you get to see Francois live on his constant touring of the country.
