Groningen, September 2026 – What is left of a person when their memories disappear? That question lies at the heart of I think I slowly slip away, the new single by Dutch-based singer, bass player and songwriter Arjan van der Linde. The song will be released on September 21, World Alzheimer’s Day.

For Van der Linde, memory loss is not a theoretical subject. Arjan was eight years old when he was involved in a serious car accident and spent a week in a coma. When he woke up, he had lost all his memories from before the accident.

Van der Linde does not like to talk about the accident all the time; for a long time, it followed him like a shadow. But for this song, he could not avoid the subject. Especially after seeing the effects of dementia up close later in life. The mother of his sister-in-law gradually lost more and more of her memories, and with them, part of her identity. For her family, this meant a long goodbye to someone who was still physically there.

I think I slowly slip away fits into Van der Linde’s body of work, in which he often writes about what happens to people, what hurts them and what keeps them going. For him, music is a way to understand things that are sometimes difficult to put into words.

In I think I slowly slip away, his personal history and later experiences come together. The event from his childhood takes on a new meaning in the song, because he now understands how deeply it affects someone when memories disappear — both for the person losing them and for the people left behind.

Martin Groenewold (Dagblad van het Noorden)