Simone Eversdijk – 2 Years (2025)
Dutch singer Simone Eversdijk has been releasing a more or less steady stream of singles since 2018, most of which have an uber dancefloor-pop sound that glitters and sparkles in exactly the way you think it would. In 2024, she released a stripped-down cover of Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears in Heaven’, featuring only her voice and two guitars, showing that she is an effective singer in a mellower, more intimate setting. She started 2025 with the dance tune ‘Zing voor Rotterdam Zuid’ (‘Sing for Rotterdam South’) but returned to the ballad format in March with the piano-driven, orchestra-drenched ‘Dicht bij mij’ (‘Close to Me’) and followed it up with her recent single, the piano ballad ‘2 Years’.
‘2 Years’ features a broader palette than the previous single, incorporating a saxophone and guitar as lead voices complementing her own. Singing against a growing orchestra accompaniment, Eversdijk tells a story of ongoing grief that at first sounds related to a breakup: “I remember all the memories/ The moments that we shared/ The laughter and the tears/ The love that we declared.” But on the chorus, the object of grief becomes clear: “It’s been two years since you left me, Mom/ I still miss you every day/ But I know you’re watching over me/ And you’re guiding me on my way.” She ends the song with the implication that grief, like love, is lasting: “And though you may be gone, my love will stay/ Forever, always, until my dying day.”
In the canon of popular music, the pain of loss due to betrayal of love or a breakup has been mined over and over, while grief due to the death of a loved one is a subject that gets comparatively little attention. When artists do address it, it’s usually with the anthemic I-know-you’re-still-with-me approach that carefully stays away from grief’s complications. If there’s something to be admired about Clapton’s song, ‘Tears in Heaven’, it’s that he accentuates the alienation of grief rather than trying to bridge the isolation.
One assumes that for Eversdijk, ‘Tears in Heaven’ and ‘2 Years’ are connected to the same loss, and she deserves credit for delving into pop music’s emotional backwater and chronicling what is a difficult topic to write about.
Find out more about Simone Eversdijk on her Instagram, TikTok and Spotify.
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