The first collaboration of Nijgh and De Groot was in an 8mm film that Nijgh made, in which De Groot sang two songs. Ed Lautenslager was impressed by the songs and put Nijgh and De Groot in contact with the record label Phonogram. De Groot became famous in the sixties for his protest songs, of which the lyrics were written by Nijgh. Their first hit was "Een meisje van 16". The second, "Welterusten, meneer de president'", made De Groot famous as a protest singer. Near the ending of the sixties, De Groot felt that Nijgh's lyrics were becoming less fitting for his image. Before their split in 1968, the duo had some more big hits, such as "Het Land van Maas en Waal'" (with the B-side "Testament") and "Prikkebeen". In 1973 Nijgh and De Groot started working together again, with the LP Hoe sterk is de eenzame fietser. The album became a huge success. At the start of the nineties, Nijgh and De Groot lived together for a while. De Groot ended up marrying Nijgh's second wife in 1995. Nijgh also wrote songs for De Groot's son – Marcel de Groot. Collaboration with different artists Nijgh didn't write lyrics exclusively for De Groot. He also wrote for several other famous Dutch singers, such as: Astrid Nijgh (his first wife), Jenny Arean, Flairck, Jasperina de Jong, Liesbeth List and Ramses Shaffy, Elly Nieman, Rob de Nijs and Cobi Schreijer. Nijgh also translated lyrics of foreign artists into Dutch, such as chansons by Charles Aznavour and Jacques Brel. Musicals Nijgh wrote several musicals. To honour the 700-year anniversary of Amsterdam in 1975, Nijgh wrote De engel van Amsterdam, an adaptation of Vondel's play, Gijsbrecht van Aemstel. In 1985, he wrote the rock opera Ik, Jan Cremer, which flopped. Nijgh also translated musicals, such as the American musical Salvation. Nijgh worked on the Annie M.G. Schmidt production Met Man En Muis. Other works Nijgh wrote for almost his entire life, except for times where he suffered from writer's block. He started by writing columns in the newspaper of the Coornhert Lyceum. He also wrote columns in the Haarlems Dagblad using the pseudonym Zeepbel. He wrote several books (including a novel named Tobia). Three years before his death Nijgh wrote a book named Met Open Mond, in which he described the history of Van der Pigge, a pharmacy in Haarlem that still sells the