Some songs don’t just resonate; they linger. They become a companion to the quiet struggles we carry—the ones we don’t always speak about. I Know What’s Coming by Belgian band The Man Up North is one of those rare tracks. It doesn’t demand attention with grand gestures; instead, it seeps into your skin, sits with you in the stillness, and acknowledges the weight of knowing that something—good or bad—is on the horizon. Like a familiar presence, it wraps around you, reminding you that the future is approaching, whether you’re ready for it or not.

For those unfamiliar, The Man Up North is a Belgian band from Leuven, known for their fusion of indie rock with shades of psychedelia and dark, atmospheric tones. Msde of Jochen Theys, Steffen Verpoorten, Alexander Meulemans, Charlotte Marsan, Moreno Claes, Michael Degreef & Dominique Dauwe, their music often explores themes of inner conflict, resilience, and the passage of time. Since their formation, they’ve built a loyal following, with their 2023 self-titled album being hailed as one of the year’s best by critics in the Belgian music scene.

When we first heard I Know What’s Coming, it felt like the kind of music you’d play while staring out a rain-streaked window, replaying the moments that shaped you. There was a raw honesty in its simplicity—a vulnerability wrapped in brooding, atmospheric indie rock. It’s the kind of song you play when you’re wrestling with acceptance, knowing that life is about to change, and all you can do is brace yourself. It’s not merely a song about dread or fear; it’s about that delicate space between acceptance and resistance—the point where you know change is inevitable, but you’re still gathering the strength to meet it.

This feeling led us to create a fan-made lyrics video, pairing I Know What’s Coming with footage from Scott Frank’s The Lookout (2007), a criminally underrated neo-noir film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt & Jeff Daniels . If you’ve seen it, you’ll know it’s largely a tense crime thriller, but we chose to strip away the heist and danger, focusing solely on something more human—the aftermath of loss.

In the film, Gordon-Levitt plays Chris Pratt, a young man whose life is shattered after a devastating car accident. Once a golden boy with a bright future, he’s left grappling with memory issues, cognitive struggles, and the slow, painful task of rebuilding his life. He’s not a hero in the conventional sense. He’s just a man trying to find his footing in a world that no longer looks the same. We see him wrestle with his limitations, cling to routine, and quietly mourn the life he thought he’d have.

And that’s where the song and the visuals clicked.

I Know What’s Coming carries an air of inevitability. The lyrics, wrapped in the band’s signature melodic blend, capture that universal dread we all face—the realization that we can’t outrun certain truths. Yet, there’s resilience in the song’s undercurrent. A quiet defiance. It’s the same resilience you see in Chris as he fumbles through his altered reality—clutching onto normalcy, even when it feels just out of reach. He’s not fighting a villain or pulling off a grand redemption; he’s simply trying to keep moving forward, even when each step is uncertain. It’s not just about surrendering to fate; it’s about enduring it.

Every frame we chose for the video is stripped of crime and violence; instead, it lingers on Chris’s isolation, his longing for the past, and his attempt to reclaim what was lost. It’s in the small, almost mundane moments—his strained relationships, his vacant stares, the way he grips onto routine like it’s his last anchor—that you feel the heart of both the song and his story. When paired with the lyrics, every glance and every stumble carries the weight of someone who knows what’s coming—but keeps going anyway. Because, really, that’s what I Know What’s Coming is about.

So, this video is our tribute – to The Man Up North, for crafting a great song that captures the quiet bravery of simply continuing in the face of uncertainty. And to everyone who’s ever stood at the edge of their own wreckage, at those crossroads, knowing what’s coming—and choosing to face it.