Lied der Woche für Deutschlernen Topic is solved

[Basler Biker]

Bosse: Der letzte Tanz

Du siehst den Eingang zum Gefängnis t=216 (3:36)

https://secrethamburg.com/santa-fu-serie/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuhlsbüttel

[Chrisinom]

Alexandra: Mein Freund der Baum

Lyrics: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/mein-fre ... -tree.html
A note in advance: This is not a song for people who are starting to learn German. Alexandra's short and intense career came to an end at a country road junction in Tellingstedt, Holstein, in July 1969. A truck had rammed into the cream-colored Mercedes coupé of the singer and composer, a fatal accident. Together with her mother (who also died at the scene) and her son (who survived with minor injuries) sleeping in the back seat, Alexandra was on her way to Sylt, where she wanted to take some time out and fundamentally rethink her artistic path. It was to be a musical emancipation beyond the male-dominated world of producers and career strategists. For her, it was time to put dominant father figures such as Fred Weyrich and Hans R. Beierlein in their place. Born Doris Treitz in the former East Prussian Memelland, Alexandra wanted to move away from the commercially successful Eastern Bloc melodies that she performed congenially with her deep voice in “Sehnsucht” or “Zigeunerjunge”. “Doch solang' ein Mensch noch träumen kann” is the title of her 1968 single ‘Illusionen’. A song that could also describe the extraordinary career of the single mother in the still traditional show business. The voice talent with the distinctive bob hairstyle had worked with stars such as Salvatore Adamo and Gilbert Bécaud during her international career. Her encounter with Carlos Jobim at the Chanson Festival in Rio de Janeiro in particular left a lasting impression. There was a friendship and collaboration with Udo Jürgens; the song „Illusionen“ was created, for which he wrote the music and she wrote the lyrics. She was striving for the kind of artistic independence that some American and British female singer/songwriters had fought for. So it was tragically fitting for Alexandra's short career that her self-composed single “Mein Freund, der Baum” was only released posthumously and then became a huge chart success.
In her chanson, Alexandra sings about her special relationship with a tree that she visited again and again as a child. She could entrust her worries and needs to it. She found peace and strength in its shade. And then the shock: the girl finds it felled by the wayside. With this song, Alexandra got to the heart of the Germans' relationship with trees and forests. The relationship between Germans and trees and forests is a highly emotional, even mystical-mythical one: the “German forest” is a metaphor and a landscape of longing, home to countless fairy tales and legends, inspiration for poets, musicians and painters. Ideological exaggerations made it a symbol of German mentality and culture. The transfiguring forest idyll in German Romanticism was highly influential, with its longing for a spiritual and aesthetic return to the woods, for the rustling of the forest or forest solitude. From Eichendorff's “rustling forest” to Schubert's “roaring forest” and Mendelssohn's “beautiful forest”. An understandable reaction to industrialization and the increasing distance of urban culture from nature.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the years of the forest dieback (German „Waldsterben“), Alexandra's chanson was seen as the first ecological song that foresaw future developments. Anyone asking about the reasons for the career of the topic of forest dieback in the mass media and in the consciousness of the population in the 1980s will hardly be able to avoid considering the forest myth and counting the romantic offerings of our forest consciousness among the causes of this collective excitement. The doomsday myth of “forest extinction” evidently reached truly hidden layers of the soul. The fear of losing cultural traditions is one of the motifs of Romanticism anyway. Like the Romantic movement and its love of the forest, the fear of the dying forest was initially a phenomenon of the cities. The more remote the population lived from nature, the more certain they were of the loss of the forests and occasionally of the resulting demise of the entire human race. The popular slogan “Erst stirbt der Baum, dann der Mensch“ (First the tree dies, then man dies) was found everywhere in large cities, but hardly in German villages.
In the context of popular German-language songs, Alexandra's song stood out from the broad mass of popular hits. German popular music in the post-war period was „Schlager“ music. It thrived on simple, easy-to-remember melodies that were immediately catchy. The songs were mostly in major keys and relied on clear, recurring harmonies. This musical simplicity was deliberately chosen to convey lightness and optimism. Gentle chord changes were typical and encouraged the listener to sing along. The melodies were often designed in such a way that they stuck with you even after the first listen. This is what made Schlager so accessible: the music should be fun and not complicated. These simple but effective structures contributed to the genre's long-standing popularity. The lyrics in Schlager were often very emotional and dealt with universal themes such as love, heartache, longing and joie de vivre. Nothing was coded or subtle - Schlager lyrics were direct, honest and sometimes a little cheesy. This simplicity created an immediate connection to the listeners, who could easily find themselves in the stories. Schlager, which still play an important role in popular music was and is the music of good humor. It gets the crowd moving at folk festivals, après-ski parties or the Oktoberfest. The songs are usually danceable, with catchy beats and driving rhythms. Many songs have sing-along choruses that are perfect for large groups.
Alexandra’s song is different. It is a song in the style of a chanson with orchestral accompaniment, the main key is A minor. The verses are accompanied by strings and individual notes of a glockenspiel, to which Alexandra sings with artificial reverberation. The accompaniment pauses briefly at the beginning of each verse and only resumes on the fourth note sung. In the refrain, drums and the onomatopoeic female choir are added, which heightens the drama of the refrain.
The structure of the song clearly stands out from that of a pop song. The three verses are each unfinished sonnets in terms of form: the two quartets (in a quatrain iamb) have embracing rhymes (abba), in the following tercet (in a quatrain iamb as well) the verse lines 1 and three rhyme, line two is a non-rhyming verse. The second tercet of the sonnet is missing; instead there is the rhymed two-line refrain “Mein Freund der Baum ist tot / Er starb im frühen Morgenrot“ (My friend the tree is dead / It fell in the early dawn)”. The first line of the refrain stands out because it’s a triple iamb. It contains the main message of the song, the death of the tree. In this way, however, the text does justice to the principle of the sonnet's content: the quartets represent a problem, a question, a conflict, in this case a natural phenomenon. The solution, answer or result follows in the tercet stanzas.
In terms of language, the song also deviates significantly from the stylistically colloquial Schlager. The sentence structure often deviates from the linguistic norm and sounds refined. A good example of this can be found in the first two lines of the second quartet in the first verse: “Als kleines Mädchen kam ich schon / Zu dir mit all den Kindersorgen kam”. The normal sentence structure would be “Schon als kleines Kind kam ich mit all den Kindersorgen zu dir“ (Even as a little girl, I came to you with all my childhood worries). Another example of this can be found in the first quartet of the third verse: In the second line of verse, the auxiliary verb “hat” comes before the participle “abgeschlagen”. There is also a conditional sentence with inversion instead of the conditional conjunction with the following subordinate clause structure inn the first stanza: „Hab' ich in deinem Arm geweint“ instead of „Wenn ich in deinem Arm geweint hab(e)“. The choice of words also indicates an elevated level of language: “längst schon” instead of “schon lange”, “aller Kummer flog davon” (all grief flew away), sich “im Wind ... wiegen“ (sway in the wind), „am Wege liegen“ (the old dative ending -e! - Lie along the path), „achtet nicht den Rest von Leben“ (disregards the rest of life), „sterbend sich zur Erde neigen (leaning dying to the earth), „mein bester Freund ist mir (instead oft für mich) verloren“ (my best friend is lost to me), „ der mit der Kindheit mich verband“ (instead of „der mich mit der Kindheit verband“ - who connected me with childhood), „graue Mauern ragen“ (gray walls tower).
In the first stanza, the protagonist describes her memory of the tree, “ein alter Freund aus Kindertagen“ (an old friend from childhood). Trees and the forest also play a major role in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. The tree became a conversation partner for her, to whom she could confide all her problems („Kindersorgen“) and who understood her. She felt safe and secure („geborgen“) with him when she could cry in his arms („Hab’ ich in deinem Arm geweint“) and she could forget her grief and be a carefree child („...aller Kummer flog davon“, all sorrow flew away), when he stroked her hair with his green leaves in her imagination („strichst du mit deinen grünen Blättern mir übers Haar“).
In the second verse, she describes the current situation: the tree was felled in the morning. and now lies on the path with the last “remnant of life” in its “green branches that lean dying to the earth”. Two verbs are used here that have a causative connection: One cuts down a tree (infinitive “fällen”) which then falls (infinitive “fallen”). The transitive “fällen” causes the intransitive “fallen”. „Fallen“ also means to die, especially in a war. There is a German poem by Wilhem Hauff from 1824: „Morgenrot, Morgenrot, leuchtest mir zum frühen Tod! (Dawn, dawn, shine on me to my early death!) (https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/antho ... ap143.html). The following two lines mourn the loss of the friend, emphasized by the alliterative “w”: „Du wirst dich nie im Wind mehr wiegen / Du musst gefällt am Wege liegen“ (You will never sway in the wind again / You must lie fallen by the wayside). The speaker's grief contrasts with the behavior of the other people, who carelessly walk past the dead tree and even tear off its remaining green branches, „die sterbend sich zur Erde neigen“ (which bend dying to the earth). The loss of the "best friend" also means the end of childhood: „Wer wird mir nun die Ruhe geben / Die ich in deinem Schatten fand (Who will now give me the peace that I found in your shadow).
The future is described in the third verse: “Bald wächst ein Haus aus Glas und Stein / Dort wo man ihn hat abgeschlagen “ (Soon a house of glass and stone will grow where it was knocked off), and where it now lies, gray walls will rise. („… werden graue Mauern ragen“). The gray walls contrast with the green branches, which is emphasized by the close rhyme with the “au” sounds, and with the sunshine („Sonnenschein“). She links this future with the hope that there could be a “miracle”: „Vielleicht wird es ein Wunder geben“ (Maybe there will be a miracle), the miracle of a future blossoming garden in front of the house that will awaken to new life. However, this is little consolation: a tree that is hundreds of years old cannot be replaced by a weak, small tree: „Und wenn auch viele Jahren geh'n / Er wird nie mehr der selbe sein“ (And even if many years go by / He will never be the same again).
The feared dieback of German forests in the 1980s and 1990s did not occur, partly because appropriate measures were taken. However, this does not mean that the forests are in the best of health. The opposite is the case. Global warming in Germany is more pronounced than the global average. The average annual temperature in Germany has risen by 1.6 °C since 1881, which is significantly more than the global average of around 1 °C. The rate of temperature rise has increased significantly over the last 50 years. In 2024, Germany set a new all-time record for the average annual temperature of 10.9 °C. The cooler and wetter it is, the more comfortable the trees in Germany feel. But the dry and hot periods are becoming longer and longer due to climate change. The forest is not prepared for this. Normally, around two to five percent oft the forests die. In recent years, however, that figure has been forty percent. The situation is also not comparable to the forest dieback in the 1990s. Back then, pollutants in the air were responsible. When we were talking about forest dieback at the end of the last century, it was a maximum of ten or twelve percent. In other words, we have never experienced mortality rates as high as today. Time to listen to Alexandra's song again.

[Chrisinom]

Reinhard Mey: Diplomatenjagd

Lyrics: https://www.songtexte.com/songtext/rein ... a078b.html
Reinhard Mey is a German and French-speaking chanson singer, lyricist and composer. Since the end of the 1960s, he has been one of the most popular representatives of the German singer-songwriter scene. Mey's pseudonym Frédérik Mey is derived from the French version of his second name Friedrich. He chose it for phonetic reasons, as in his opinion the French first name Renaud, which corresponds to the German Reinhard, would have resulted in an unfavorable French pronunciation. Renaud sounds like Renault and as a full name Renaud Mey sounds similar to renommée. Reinhard Mey's songs mainly deal with themes taken from life. In the 1960s and 1970s, these included love songs , songs about flying , about death , satirical observations of social realities and the adversities of everyday life , ironic-satirical observations of social realities and the adversities of everyday life or his own life. Occasionally he succeeds in coining the German language ("Der Mörder ist immer der Gärtner"). In contrast to French chanson, Mey's songs initially rarely dealt with political themes. Since the 1990s in particular, his albums have increasingly included songs that take a political stance, are critical of society and the times and are often characterized by a pacifist attitude.
“Diplomatenjagd” from 1971 is a good example of Mey's ironic unmasking of a supposed political and social elite, one of the most delicious satires of early Mey and one of his most famous songs at the time. The seemingly harmless slapstick draws a portrait of an arrogant and decadent “upper class” with just a few strokes of the pen - poking fun at the „pillars of society“. At the same time, Mey's text demonstrates his linguistic elegance, which knows how to formulate his thoughts with somnambulistic confidence and virtuosity. As a linguistic virtuoso, he is unparalleled on the German singer-songwriter scene. This makes him a songwriter worth listening to and reading for advanced learners of German.
As the title suggests, the vocabulary of the ballad consists of terms that have something to do with a diplomatic hunt. A diplomatic hunt is a hunting event with the participation of diplomats. In the song, this is first of all the diplomatic corps (also korps), a legally undefined term for either only the heads of mission (ambassadors, envoys, ministers or chargés d'affaires) or the entire diplomatic staff of a country. An Attaché Mehring is mentioned by name, an embassy employee with special specialist tasks, such as military attaché, cultural attaché or the press attaché responsible for the representation's public relations work. The hunting society also includes the foreign minister of an unspecified country. However, it is not only diplomats who take part in the hunt, but also noblemen. Above all, there is the host of the event, Bodo Freiherr von (from) „Schloss Hohenhecke zu Niederlahr“. “Freiherr” is an aristocratic title that is commonly used in Germany and other German-speaking regions. It means “free nobleman” and corresponds to the baron. The title is part of the family name and comes after the first name. The “klapprige(n) Ahnnherr(n) (rickety ancestor(s) of Kieselknirsch“, is also mentioned by name. An „Ahnherr“ is the first, mostly legendary ancestor of a noble family. Kieselknirsch (literally pebble creak) is the fitting name for the aged nobleman who has to be carried on a stretcher („auf der Bahre“) to the stalking ground („Pirsch“).
Of course, the high military should not be missing at such an event. Two generals (“Zwei Generäle“) ride at the head of the hunting expedition (”zuvor", that is ahead of the diplomats). Again, a representative of this group is mentioned by name, Lieutenant General von Zitzewitz, a descendant of the Prussian noble family Zitzewitz-Kutzeke, which can be traced back to the year 1168. However, the name Zitzewitz became famous through numerous jokes, representing stupidity in the military. Mey also makes fun of the participation of business leaders as “the knights of the Order of the Economy”. Last but not least, the high clergy is represented by a “Monsignore” who throws himself into the action “mit Furore“ (with furor). Not directly named, but implicitly inferable, is the participation of some common people, who drive the game as beaters (“mit Prügeln”, bludgeons) in front of the hunters' guns. The landscape through which this hunt passes is quite idyllic: it leads through “Felder und Auen“ (fields and floodplains), “Wiesen und Büsche(n)“ (meadows and bushes), “Wald und Flur“ (woods and farmland)” to a “Waldesrand“ (old for Waldrand, forest edge)” and a “Schneise“ (clearing”). However, the idyll is abruptly disturbed by the hunting party: „Schon bricht es herein …, das diplomatische Korps“ (The diplomatic corps is already breaking in). That sounds more like Donald Trump than diplomatic procedure.
The victims of this hunting pleasure are “haarige Sauen“ (hairy sows), “Hirsche“ (stags), “Fasanen“ (pheasants), “Enten“ (ducks) and “Keiler“ (boars). In addition, there are somewhat unusual hunting victims: Lieutenant General von Zitzewitz lives up to his reputation as a figure of fun and laments („beklagt“) the loss of his dachshund” („den Verlust seines Dackels“) “Attaché Mehring shoots („erlegt“) a herring, which the bullets pierce deep-frozen and still in the cling bag („den tiefgefroren die Kugeln durchbohren, noch im Frischhaltebeutel“). This leads to a boar surrendering (sich ergeben“), completely disturbed by the noise The shooting of the kill together with the collateral victims is depicted with a variable vocabulary: “Es knallen die Büchsen (the rifles bang), “ein Pulverblitz“ (a flash of gunpowder), “der kriegt kurzerhand eins übergebrannt“ (it gets one over without further ado), “er schießt wie der Teufel“ (he shoots like the devil), “man reicht ihm die Büchse“ (they hand him the rifle), “es prasselt der Schrot“ (the buckshot crackles), “ein prächtiger Blattschuss“ (a splendid chest shot).
The ballad consists of six stanzas, the first five with ten lines each, the last with twelve lines. There is also an outro of four verse lines. The alternating rhymes in lines one to four and nine to ten frame the couplets in lines five to eight. The verse lines with the alternating rhymes alternate between four and three beats, the lines with the rhyming couplets are each in three beats.The last stanza follows this pattern in the first four lines of verse, followed by eight trimetres with rhyming couplets. The concluding outro consists of four tetrametric couplets. The rhythm of the song is characterized by the alternation between iambs and anapests, which express the propulsive nature of hunting music.
The first stanza begins with the dawn of the hunt: „Es hat soeben getagt“. „Tagen“ is usually to hold a meeting in German, but in elevated style it is also a synonym oft „dämmern“, to dawn. Apart from the last two lines, the stanza consists of a single sentence, which at first glance appears grammatically incorrect. It begins with a place adverbial, which is not followed by the verb, as expected, but by a subject, the personal pronoun “es”. With correct punctuation (which tends to be the exception in song lyrics), however, it becomes clear that this subject belongs to an inserted main clause (line 2), which should be separated from the rest of the sentence by dashes. The entire sentence is then continued with the verb “lädt”, which is followed by the subject with further adverbials and objects. This exposition of the action demonstrates Mey's linguistic skill, as he elegantly masters even complex sentence structures.
The last verse ends the day with the dawning of night („Die Nacht bricht herein“) and represents a restored idyll (“ein friedliches Bild“). In between lies an eventful day of hunting with the aforementioned absurd incidents (the loss of the Zitzewitz dachshund and the shooting oft the frozen herring), which ruin the intended careful planning of the owner of the hunting ground with the animals prepared for the hunt the evening before („… „für teures Geld am Vorabend ... aufgestellt“, set up for expensive money the evening before).
The climax of the absurd hunting scenes is in stanzas four and five. The aged ancestor “can no longer see properly” („sieht nicht mehr recht“), but is a good shot and sends the foreign minister to the eternal hunting grounds („in die ewigen Jagdgründe“, as you would say in German). To general indignation, he then also calls out “Weidmannsheil”, the traditional wish for good luck to a hunter before the hunt or said when congratulating a hunter on a kill. „Weidmann“ (also Waidmann) is the technical term for a hunter, the answer to „Weidmannsheil“ is „Weidmannsdank“). But the cunning satirist Mey immediately finds an excuse for the shooter: He should be given credit for what a splendid shot it was („Das war, bei Hubertus / Ein prächtiger Blattschuss - St. Hubertus is considered the patron saint of hunters and foresters) and that he must have misunderstood something. He had probably taken the word “diplomat hunt” a little too literally („etwas zu wörtlich genommen“). Grammatically speaking, this is not entirely correct. It is a linguistic phenomenon with compound words in German, similar to the Latin genitivus subiectivus and genitivus obiectivus. Compound words with “hunt” denote either the type of hunt (“Treibjagd”) or the prey to be hunted (“fox hunt”), but in the case of the “Diplomatenjagd” it defines the participants in the hunt. Thus the hunt of diplomats becomes a hunt for diplomats.
What remains is the the monsignor's blessing for the„Strecke“ of lifeless, aged game. „Strecke“ is a word for the entirety of the game killed during a hunt (laid down on the ground in an orderly fashion after the hunt). What the priest is blessing presents a sad picture. The hunted game is not only lifeless, but at least as old (“greis”, „Veteranen“) as the "Ahnerr". The pheasants are tough, the duck has rheumatism, the boar has asthma. No wonder nobody wants to eat that. So, in good hunting style, they turn to alcohol (“Die Jagd wird begossen” - “begießen” is colloquial for celebrating an event with alcoholic beverages) and come to a conclusion that is as wise as it is generous („großzügig“) and charitable: The junk („Krempel“) is donated to the nearest orphanage. Thus, the Monsignor’s blessing is bestowed even upon the poorest: „So wird auch den Ärmsten der Segen zuteil“ – „Zuteilwerden“ (elevated language) means to be granted, imposed, be allotted (by fate or by a superior person). The outro concludes with a triple „Weidmannsheil“ to the art of hunting („Weidwerk“).

[rudi]

Eine kleine Bemerkung zu Deinen (wie immer interessanten und ausführlichen ) Erklärungen: Waid, wie auch die abgeleiteten Begriffe wie "Waidmannsheil", wird mit "ai" geschrieben.

[Chrisinom]

Danke für den Hinweis, aber ich habe das vorab gegoogelt: Beide Schreibweisen sind korrekt (https://m.korrekturen.de/forum.pl/md/re ... geaendert/)

[rudi]

Okay, dann tut es mir leid Entschuldigung!
Ich habe es in der Schule einfach anders gelernt und in allen Publikationen zu dem Thema immer nur mit "ai" gelesen. Persönlich würde ich es daher weiterhin so schreiben.
Danke auch Dir für den Hinweis und nichts für ungut!

Was mir gerade auffällt: Für die Redewendung "nichts für ungut" können wir übrigens fast schon einen neuen Thread aufmachen...

[Chrisinom]

Ich habe es auch in der Schule anders gelernt, wie die meisten

[Chrisinom]

Anna Depenbusch: Tim liebt Tina / Tim 2.0

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/tim-lieb ... -tina.html
After the linguistically sophisticated ballad by the old singer-songwriter Reinhard Mey, now a linguistically simpler song by a young German singer-songwriter, at least at first glance. Getting too fixated on one career direction often goes wrong. But not if there is perseverance and real talent behind it. As in the case of Anna Depenbusch, who was born in Hamburg on October 17, 1977. Even as a child, she knew that she wanted to seek her fortune in music. As a ten-year-old, she performed on stage for the first time as part of the school big band. In 2005, Anna got her first chance to release a song - and took it. “In your face” was more than just a respectable success. Collaborations with other artists followed. But Anna's financial situation was often not rosy. She was forced to break up her band. To secure her livelihood, she worked as a driver for vegetable trucks, among other things. But music was still her main priority. The singer spent two years working on songs for a new longplayer. The ambitious album “Die Mathematik Der Anna Depenbusch” was released in January 2011. The title is a reference to the book “Die Mathematik Der Nina Gluckstein” by Esther Vilar, which left a lasting impression on Anna as a teenager.
An album name like this may primarily be associated with cool, cerebral titles. But no, the Hamburg singer Anna Depenbusch was not trying to send a message to her old math teacher with her new album. Instead, “Die Mathematik der Anna Depenbusch” is about unpredictability. It's about love. About relationships. About people and inequalities - just like in her single “Tim liebt Tina”. “Tim liebt Tina” is a colorful relationship carousel. It is almost reminiscent ofthe content summaries of the daily soaps in TV magazines. It sounds like a harmless children's song, but the linguistically rather simple lyrics are full of funny surprises and bitter twists. There is lying and cheating, seduction, risk-taking and nobody actually gets the one they want.
Formally, the song is also quite simple. It consists of three verses, a chorus and an outro in place of the last chorus. The verses are each about a love affair between partners whose first names are mentioned - with one exception, the speaker of the song, who becomes part of the love dance („Liebesreigen“ like in Arthus Schnitzlers „Reigen“) in the last verse. The refrain defines love in simple words, the first two as antitheses: „Die Liebe kommt, die Liebe geht“ (comes and disappears), die Liebe „brennt und bricht“ (burns and breaks), and die Liebe „hält, was sie verspricht“ (keeps its promises). These definitions are concluded in the same way (two antitheses and a statement) in the outro: „Wir lachen, wir leiden“ (laugh, suffer), „verlassen und bleiben“ (leave, stay), „wir leben und lernen daraus“ (live and learn from it). The outro closes with the childish-sounding words “Das Liebeslied ist jetzt aus“ (The love song is over now).
Three love triangles are depicted in the three stanzas, with Tim from the first triangle surprisingly joining the triangle in the last verse. The first verse is about Tim, Tina and Klaus. „Tim liebt Tina, doch (synonym for „aber) Tine liebt Klaus.“ But Klaus has to go to China for work („muss beruflich nach China“ – an example of the use of the modal auxiliary „müssen“ without a full verb, whose meaning can be inferred from the context). So Klaus leaves Tina at home („zu Haus“ – the dative ending „-e“ is dropped not only for the rhyme. In most cases, the ending has already been dropped; in the case of “zu / nach Haus(e)”, both forms can still be found, especially in the noun “das Zuhause”). We learn nothing more about the fate of Tina and Klaus, the rest of the verse focuses on Tim. Tim doesn't know what to do with himself (the idiomatic expression in German is „… weiß nicht wohin mit sich“), so he comforts himself with vodka and saps his way through the day („säuft sich durch den Tag“ – „saufen“ usually refers to bigger animals but is also used for the excessive consumption of alcohol).
The second verse begins more optimistically: Ron loves his Ronja and Ronja loves her Ron. The personal pronouns (seine Ronja“, „ihren Ron“ indicate a really happy relationship. But this is immediately followed by a typical Depenbusch twist: Sometimes Ron also sleeps with Sonja, but his Ronja doesn't know anything about that. However, with a lot of skill and a bit of luck („mit viel Geschick und etwas Glück“), Ron gets away with it („bricht … sich nicht sein Genick“, doesn’t break his neck). He marries his Ronja („nimmt Ronja zur Frau“) and keeps having casual sex with Sonja – „Gelegenheitsfick“. Oops! No one else sings such a dirty word as tenderly as Depenbusch with her bell-like and almost childlike voice that warbles “lalalala” in waltz beat in between. Ron's „Geschick“ finds its counterpart in the internal and final rhymes of the songwriter, who, as always, loves to rhyme: Sonja - Ronja, Geschick - Glück - Genick - Gelegenheitsfick, schlau - Frau).
The third love triangle initially seems to follow the pattern of the first love triangle: A loves B, but B loves C. However, two elements differ. A (Paul) is homosexual and loves B (Peter), who is not homosexual. Finally, C, who is loved by Peter, is the female speaker of the song, For the sake of simplicity, I'll call her “Anna”. Once again, the singer-songwriter gives free rein to her love of phonetic effects, here in the form of assonances (zutraulich - Frauen - Traum, Lebenssinn - Kind - sind – Tim). Peter can only hope that Paul might become “zutraulich” later on. „Zutraulich“ is a word that is mostly used for pets and children that are accustomed to humans, „handzahm“ (tame enough to be handled, docile), without shyness, affectionate. But for Paul, who is not homosexual, “Anna” is his dream, “sein größter Lebenssinn“ (his greatest meaning in life). That's why he has wanted her to have a child ever since they started dating. But in a final twist, “Anna” does want a child, but not from him - but from Tim. This closes the circle and the round dance returns to the beginning. Consequently, the beginning of the outro leads back to the beginning: Tim loves Tina …
Almost everyone involved in the „Ronde“ is phonetically linked: Tim and Tina as well as Peter and Paul through alliteration, Ron with the female form of his name Ronja and via the rhyme with Sonja, and Anna, being a palindrome, with herself. The only one who falls out of this rhyming roundelay is Klaus, who is shipped off to China. At least he is not without rhyme either, as he rhymes with the final word of the song: „Das Liebeslied ist jetzt aus.“
But that’s not quite true. Ten years later, Anna Depenbusch presents a continuation of Tina and Tim's story in her album “Echtzeit”: „Tim 2.0“

https://lyricstranslate.com/de/anna-dep ... yrics.html
Tim is now a top manager with everything that goes with it (house, boat, car, adrenaline, sometimes cocaine, cover picture on Gentlemen's Quarterly magazine). He no longer drinks, is in top shape and runs half marathons. But at night, when it gets dark, he lies awake because he feels lonely and thinks of his childhood sweetheart Tina. He googles her, and thanks to social media, he finds out that she does silk painting and dances Zumba. Finally, he calls her. She's doing great, living from day to day and is convinced that there is no problem in life that Zumba can't solve. Zumba may not be his thing, but he's willing to give it a try. And then Tim is standing in the gym, surrounded by women in flowing robes with colorful batik ribbons, And then he hears the music, and then he feels this beat and it all bursts out of him, and he grows beyond himself … „Und tanzt und tanzt und tanzt und tanzt und tanzt / Und er tanzt und tanzt und tanzt und tanzt und tanzt / Und er dreht und dreht und dreht und dreht und dreht.“ Tim cries and laughs because he realizes that dancing makes him feel alive. As a result, Tim and Tina are now very close, Tim is happy and dances as often as he can. The moral of the story: opposites attract each other and there is no problem in life that Zumba cannot solve.
This is, of course, pure cliché and not to be taken entirely seriously. The album is entitled “In Real Time” because Anna Depenbusch opted for a unique recording technique, the analog vinyl direct recording. The album was recorded live and completely analog in one piece, without cuts or breaks. This is in stark contrast to our years of optimization mania. We are all constantly supplied with new data and information by our digital devices - what does that do to us? Tim has googled Tina, “spied on her”, “studied her photos on Instagram and Facebook”, “he knows all her hobbies in every detail” – and ends dancing Zumba, surrounded by women in flowing robes with colorful batik ribbons. We can only wait with bated breath to find out what happened to poor homosexual Peter and what Klaus, who was dumped in China, makes of his love life now.

[Chrisinom]

Katja Ebstein: Theater
Song and lyrics: https://eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/1980/germany
With some artists, you can't help but get the impression that they have always been around. Katja Ebstein is one of them; for many years, she has always been present in some way or another - sometimes more, sometimes less - and at least among the older generation, there is hardly anyone who can't sing along to lines like “Theater, Theater, der Vorhang geht auf” or “Wunder gibt es immer wieder”. Katja Ebstein is also the most successful artist at the European Song Contest (ESC), then known as the Grand Prix d'Eurovision de la Chanson. She came third twice (in 1970 with “Immer wieder geht die Sonne auf” and in 1971 with “Diese Welt”) and came second in 1980 with “Theater”. Ebstein is the most successful performer to have taken part in the contest without ever winning.
Karin Witkiewicz began her singing career in the 1960s in the Berlin singer-songwriter scene. It was all about having fun: for a rather symbolic fee, she sang in the same pubs where others began their careers. Among them: Hannes Wader, Reinhard Mey and Insterburg & Co, the combo around Ingo Insterburg and Karl Dall, which very successfully cultivated the “art of higher nonsense” and thus basically invented what would later be offered for sale under the label of stand-up comedy. In the 1970s, Ebstein was one of the most successful German pop singers. The entertainment industry honored her with several awards: most popular foreign singer (Spain); Rosa di Roma (Italy); Goldene Europa (twice); Goldene Stimmgabel; Lale Andersen Prize; Fred Jay Prize. From 1974 onwards, Ebstein turned to chanson and cabaret. In 1975, EMI Electrola released the long-playing record “Katja Ebstein sings Heinrich Heine”, produced with the support of the Heinrich Heine Society.
With the director and author Klaus Überall, whom she married in 1979, Ebstein developed her acting talent from the early 1980s. Überall staged her first play, „Professor Unrat“, at the Ernst-Deutsch-Theater in Hamburg in 1980. Ebstein played the role of the „blue angel“ Rosa Fröhlich. Many other theater engagements followed, from the „Buhlschaft“ in „Jedermann“ to the pirate Jenny in Brecht's „Dreigroschenoper“. She took on leading roles in the musicals „Chicago“, „Sweet Charity“ and in 1993 in „Victor and Victoria“. Finally, she played Chaja in „Ghetto“ by Joshua Sobol at the Staatstheater Meiningen.
In addition to all this, Katja Ebstein has always been politically active. For example, she was a vocal campaigner for Willy Brandt's re-election. In addition to her commitment to Welthungerhilfe and various other medical and socio-political aid organizations, she set up the Katja Ebstein Foundation for socially disadvantaged and needy children in 2004. In 2005, she supported the “Strong Women” campaign for Heide Simonis. In January 2008, the Federal President honored her social commitment to children in need with the Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2016, she was elected by the Brandenburg state parliament as a member of the Federal Assembly and, in this capacity, took part in the election of the Federal President in 2017, in which Frank-Walter Steinmeier emerged victorious.
“Theater”, Kaja Ebstein's 1980 Eurovision song, offers German learners a range of words and idiomatic expressions related to the theme of the title: “(Sich) eine Maske aufsetzen” (put a mask on), “die / eine Rolle spielen” (play the/a role), “im Rampenlicht” (in the footlight), “der Vorhang geht auf” (the curtain opens), “die Bühne wird zur Welt” (the stage becomes the world), “nur der Augenblick zählt” (it’s only the moment that counts), “ein Traum erwacht zum Leben” (a dream comes back to life), “der Clown muss lachen, auch wenn ihm zum Weinen ist” (the clown has to laugh, even if he wants to cry), “der Held muss stark sein und für das Recht kämpfen” (the hero has to be strong, and fight for the right), “ihm ist vor Lampenfieber schlecht“ (he is sick with stage fright), “Alles ist nur Theater und ist doch auch Wirklichkeit“ (everything is just theater and yet it is also reality), “Theater (ist) das Tor zur Phantasie“ (theater is the gateway to fantasy), “Theater ist Leben und Traum“ (theater is life and dream), “Theater ist Anfang und Ende zugleich“(theater is the beginning and the end at the same time), “Wir geben alles für euch“ (we give everything for you), „(Wir) weinen und lachen für euch“ (we laugh and cry for you”).
And finally: “Theater, das ist wie ein Rausch“ (Theater is like intoxication). The Greek god Dionysus is the god of intoxication and the god of theater. The fascination of intoxication for artists of all genres is often that intoxication can lead to emotional highs as well as brutal crashes. Euripides, for example, in his Dionysus drama "The Bacchae", allows joyful dancing frenzy to turn into blind frenzy, which ultimately even leads to a mother killing her own child. Thomas Mann's artistic characters fall over by the dozen as soon as the creative frenzy has taken hold of them. If one examines the contribution of Grand Prix veterans Siegel/Meinunger with regard to this ambivalence of intoxication, it becomes clear that this text also develops from a harmlessly cheerful high to an uncontrollable high. The world is turned upside down. The space-time continuum dissolves.
On a temporal level, only the moment counts („zählt nur der Moment“). This already shows a first connecting element between the art of theater as art in the present tense, in which only the fleeting live performance counts, and the state of intoxication. Because in intoxication, only the now counts. Temporal parameters become blurred, a past and a future no longer seem to exist. Everything is now, beginning and end at the same time („Anfang und Ende zugleich“). And the concept of space also becomes amorphous: Heaven and hell at the same time („Himmel und Hölle zugleich“). Two absolute oppositions flow into each other through the equal order. There is no longer a top and bottom in the stage frenzy. The word “hell” also refers to its occupant, the devil. The devil is also called Diabolus and Diabolus means „muddler“. This is exactly what happens in a state of intoxication: everything is thrown into confusion.
In all the confusion, the curtain seems to be the only fixed spatial constant, as it divides the theatrical world into an upstage for the actors and a downstage for the audience: „Sie stehn oben und die unten schauen sie an.“ (They stand above and those below look at them.) When the curtain is lifted, the stage becomes the world (wird die „Bühne zur Welt“). However, the concept of baroque world theater is only seemingly served, because where the stage becomes the world in Ebstein's song, the world becomes the stage in the baroque sense. In the first part, this chiasmus describes an exclusive spatial concept with the stage world, but an inclusive one with the world stage. The spatial concept of the theater may also be exclusive, but once you have arrived in the world of the stage, its aura seems to open up and dissolve boundaries: Everything is just theater and yet is also reality/ theater - the gateway to fantasy („Alles ist nur Theater und ist doch auch Wirklichkeit / Theater, das Tor zur Phantasie“). Once the boundaries of reality have been overcome in a state of intoxication, perception becomes more intense. The gateway to the imagination opens and everything becomes psychedelically colorful. In his essay "The Doors of Perception", Aldous Huxley uses a similar door metaphor to describe mind-expanding processes. However, he did not go to the theater to do this, but instead took the hallucinogen mescaline.
The buzzwords “Entgrenzung" (dissolution of boundaries) and “Phantasie“ (fantasy) lead us to the Romantics and their longing for transcendence. And so it is only logical that Huxley took his essay title from the work "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" (1790-93) by the English Romantic William Blake: “If the doors of perception were cleansed / everything would appear to man as it is, infinite”. Time dissolves into infinity, “Anfang und Ende zugleich“ (beginning and end at the same time). The blending of spatial constants appears in the form of the marriage between heaven and hell, “Himmel und Hölle zugleich“ (heaven and hell at the same time). But it is not only the boundaries of perception and space and time that dissolve in the exclusive world of theater and intoxication; the identity of the actors is also affected: A collective they puts on a mask every night (setzt „jeden Abend eine Maske auf“). If you read the Greek persona - “mask“ - here, you could already recognize a tendency towards multiple personalities in the first lines of the song. In addition to space and time, fixed concepts of identity also become fleeting. The asyndeton “König, Bettler, / Clown (king, beggar,/clown) barely allows for a dividing line between the three vocations; only a comma prevents the final merging of such disparate identities as king, beggar and clown. The line break in the middle of the enumeration further emphasizes the merging of the identities.
Finally, the speaker is also caught up in the intoxicating confusion of identities: At the beginning, he soberly describes those above as “sie”, they, excluding himself. In the course of the play, he then has a good overview of both the actors and the audience. For example, he knows that the clown has to laugh even though he feels like crying inside, as well as that those sitting below do not notice this. Only a strange syntax may already reveal that the instance is sucked into the theatrical frenzy: “Und der Clown, der muss lachen” , „Und der Held, der muss stark sein“. The repeated modal verb „muss“ in combination with a seemingly infantile sentence structure suggests that the gateway to fantasy („Tor zur Phantasie“) will soon be passed through for good. And so the Dionysian stage fright finally takes hold of the speaker, who turns to an audience “ihr” at the end. In the last line, the collective of actors, previously separated as “sie”, suddenly becomes a „wir“: Yes, we'll give everything for you! („„Ja, wir geben alles für euch“).
Once again, this exclamation of euphoric enthusiasm reveals the two sides of intoxication. To borrow from the Greeks once again: taken literally, euphoria already carries the “good” within it: eu- means "good/well-" and -phoria goes back to the Greek verb phérein, "to carry". Intoxication therefore makes some things particularly enjoyable or easier to bear. Permanent intoxication, however, would be almost unbearable, as it would ultimately lead to a loss of control and finally to the complete consumption of the intoxicated person. Indeed: “We give everything for you!” Applaus (applause).

[Chrisinom]

Volker Lechtenbrink: Ich mag / Tocotronic: Aber hier leben, nein danke

Lyrics: https://lyricstranslate.com/de/volker-l ... yrics.html
Volker Lechtenbrink was born in Cranz/East Prussia in 1944. He spoke on NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk) children's radio at the age of eight. Two years later, he appeared on stage in a Christmas fairy tale at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus. In 1959, he became known throughout Germany in the role of Klaus Hager in Bernhard Wicki's anti-war film „Die Brücke“ (The Bridge). Four years later, Volker Lechtenbrink made his “real” theater debut at the Landesbühne Hannover in Shakespeare's „The Merchent oft Venice“ and became a member of the ensemble. This was followed by engagements at the stages of the city of Cologne and the Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel in Munich. From 1969 to 1983, he was engaged at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, where he also directed. Since then, Volker Lechtenbrink has made guest appearances in Munich, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Hamburg and many other cities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He became known to a large German audience through his roles in numerous television films. In 1976, Lechtenbrink presented his highly acclaimed first long-playing record „Der Macher“. The title song is a cover version of Kris Kristofferson’s „The Taker“. This was followed by numerous other records and concert tours, which finally established Lechtenbrink among the greats of the German pop scene. „Ich mag“ from 1981 is one of his most popular songs.
The song is useful for German learners for two reasons. The first reason is linguistic. The text is simple in terms of its sentence structure, but contains a stumbling block for learners of German as a foreign language. It deals with the problem of how to express your preference for something in German. „Ich mag deutsche Musik, ich höre gerne deutsche Musik, deutsche Musik gefällt mir“ – there’s one translation in English for those three sentences, I like (listining to) German music. Likewise in other languages: J’aime (French), Me gusta (Spanish), Mi piace (Italian), Gosto de (Portuguese), Lubię (Polish). All three forms differ in sentence construction. The question now is: When is which word used?
Beginners usually learn how to express preferences in German early on in their course. However, as they usually learn them without much of an explanation on the grammatical differences between them, students usually think they can pick and choose whichever word they fancy using. Alas, things aren‘t that easy in German. The most common preference word in German is mögen. "Mögen" is a verb that is almost exclusively used with nouns and pronouns. Some examples: „Ich mag Tennis“, „Die Frau mag kein Fleisch“, „Ihr mögt keine Äpfel“. You can find the forms of this irregular verb here: https://www.verbformen.de/konjugation/mo3gen.htm. You shouldn’t use „mögen“ with an infinitive: *“Ich mag lesen“. This is a common mistake that even small native-speaking children and sometimes adults make, as can be seen in Lechtenbrink's song: „Ich mag …, / Wohnen, wo's nicht lärmt“. This can be explained by the structure of the poem, a kind of enumeration of preferences with “Ich mag”, as well as by the fact that the infinitive construction does not immediately follow “Ich mag ...”. You can get around the problem by inserting the pronoun “es” after the form of “mögen”: “Ich mag es zu lesen”. However, this is not very elegant stylistically.
So what to do to express a preference for an activity? The most elegant solution is to use the adverb “gern(e)”, which is used for preferences regarding verbs: „Ich spiele gern(e) Tennis“, „Die Frau isst nicht gern(e) Fleisch“. The position of adverbs like "gern" is normally third, straight after the conjugated verb. „Lieber" is the comparative form of gern and usually translates as prefer. We normally use it to suggest alternatives to what was said before. Someone might ask you „Spielst du gern Tennis” and you might want to respond “Ich spiele lieber Fußball”. So you prefer/you’d rather play football. „Am liebsten“ is the superlative form of gern(e) and communicates the strongest preferences, so when you like doing something the most: „Ich spiele am liebsten Volleyball“.
But what about the third variant, the verb “gefallen”? It is largely comparable to “mögen”, but is constructed differently in sentence structure: „Ich mag das Oktoberfest“ / „Mir gefällt das Oktoberfest“. So what I like is the direct object (Akkusativobjekt) of „mögen“ but the subject with „gefallen“, where the person that likes something becomes the indirect object (Dativobjekt). With regard to their meaning, there is often a considerable overlap so that both may apply. The differences are rather subtle: "gefallen" focuses on properties, while "mögen" centers around emotions. Das Mädchen da drüben gefällt mir = she has likable properties such as beauty, grace, clothing or whatever. „Ich mag sie (sehr gerne)“ = He has emotions for the girl. Can be as simple as trust or sympathy (e.g. to coworkers) or stronger like affections or attraction. „Gefallen = to find pleasant, pretty, attractive; it appeals to me. „Mögen = be fond of something / someone; arousing positive feelings. Another difference is closely linked to this: "mögen" is used to express "long term liking", while "gefallen" rather an immediate / spontaneous one. For example, if I go to a clothing store and I see a shirt, that I like, that would be "gefallen". But let's say that I buy it and after a year I want to tell my friend that the shirt is one of my favorite shirts, that would be "mögen".
A final word on the verb „mögen“, one of the most complicated verbs in German grammar. Its subjunctive 2 forms (ich möchte etc.) correspond to the English “I'd like to“ and are likewise constructed with the infinitive oft full verbs: "Ich möchte (gern) Deutsch lernen“ (I’d like to learn German). Last but not least, “mögen” is also a modal auxiliary verb that is etymologically related to the English “may / might” and expresses a conjecture: “Was mag er wohl denken?” (What might he think) / “Was mag das bedeuten” (What might that mean) / "Kommt sie?“ (Is she coming) – „(Das) mag sein“ (That may be.)
As the title says, Volker Lechtenbrink uses “Ich mag” throughout his song. This means that his preferences (for the sake of simplicity, I equate the author of the song with the speaker of the song) are emotionally anchored in him, part of a spectrum of values. Learning a language also means learning about the culture (in a broader sense) of a country and its historical context. Lechtenbrink’s values („was er mag“) have a lot to do with the history of post-war Germany and especially the period between 1968 and 1982. The protests oft the 68ers were directed against the post-war order, the Vietnam War, the rigid sexual morals, the lack of reappraisal of National Socialism and the rigid hierarchies. In addition to political and social criticism, there was also a cultural counter-movement that manifested itself in the areas of music, art, fashion and lifestyle. Hippie culture, alternative lifestyles and the search for new, individual forms of expression were important aspects. Overall, the '68 movement contributed to Germany becoming a more open and tolerant society. It has had a lasting influence on political, social and cultural life and made many of today's values and norms possible in the first place.
Very soon, however, a small part of the student movement became radicalized as the “RAF“ (Red Army Faction)”, also known as the “Baader-Meinhof Group”. The RAF was founded in 1970 after Andreas Baader was freed from prison, an action in which Ulrike Meinhof and others were involved. The group intended to overthrow the existing social order in West Germany through violence, inspired by the idea of the “urban guerrilla”. It recruited members from the left-wing scene and saw itself as anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist and anti-fascist. The RAF carried out numerous bomb attacks and assassinations, including the murder of Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback and Dresdner Bank CEO Jürgen Ponto. The arrest of the group's leading figures in June 1972 did not put an end to left-wing terrorism. The “German Autumn” of 1977 is regarded as the high point of RAF activities, with the kidnapping and murder of employer president Hanns Martin Schleyer and the hijacking of the Lufthansa plane “Landshut”. However, a special unit of the Federal Border Guard managed to storm the plane in Mogadishu and free the hostages. Andreas Baader and three other RAF leaders then committed suicide in their cells. One day later, Schleyer's body was found in the trunk of a car.
On a political level, the end of conservative CDU rule with the election of the Social Democrat Willy Brandt as Federal Chancellor in 1969 was a result of the profound change in values at the end of the 1960s. His successor Helmut Schmidt continued Brandt's social-liberal coalition and had to overcome economic crises, try to prevent an escalation of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and oppose the blackmail attempts of the RAF. Due in particular to the differing economic policy attitudes of his liberal coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), there was a constructive vote of no confidence in parliament in 1982, which elected the Christian Democrat Hekmut Kohl as Chancellor. In the 1980 Bundestag election campaign, Kohl had already spoken of the need for a spiritual and moral turnaround („geistig-moralische Wende“), thus setting himself apart from then Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, whom he accused of capitulating to the spirit of the times. („Zeitgeist“). According to Kohl, a federal government must demonstrate “political and spiritual leadership” through decisive action. At the same time, a new party formed at the other end of the political spectrum, the Greens, a party of the anti-nuclear and environmental movements, the New Social Movements, the peace movement and the New Left of the 1970s.
What does Volker Lechtenbrink like, what values does he share with whom? The song obviously contains many things that were also of value in the 50s and 60s. Here, even though Lechtenbrink lived in Hamburg, German provincial „Gemütlichkeit“ is celebrated, supplemented by some integrated aspects of Anglo-American and European culture. For example, the original German “Skat mit Ramsch und Bock” (Skat is the most popular German card game, Ramsch and Bock are elements of the game) is joined by “Pokern, nächtelang“ (poker all night long), “trock’ne(r), herbe(r) Wein“ (dry, tart wine) by “Whisky ohne Eis“ (whisky without ice), and “Country songs und Rock” by the music of the composers “Mozart, Mahler, Bach”, all of whom come from German-speaking countries. The type of rock involved is made clear - unless you see the two musical styles as opposites - by the sequence with “country songs”: it is not about rock as an expression of rebellion, not about the blues elements originating from the culture of the oppressed African-American population, but about the ‘white’ hillbilly elements of rock'n'roll. It is therefore not about sexually charged dance music, but about songs that can be sung along to an acoustic guitar while drinking around the campfire. The excess is limited to „das Durchmachen von Nächten“ (having an all-night party, presumably Saturday nights, followed by Sundays in bed („Sonntage im Bett“). The freedom is limited to swimming around with no bottom, whereby the play on words “Schwimmen ohne mit” indicates the uptightness. Otherwise, family values („Mama und Papa“, „meine Tochter, meinen Sohn“) and local patriotism („Hamburg, meine Stadt“) are cultivated, regardless of the possible “Trennung ohne Zwang“ (separation without quarrelling), and on weekdays, as can be deduced ex negativo from the Sundays spent in bed, people naturally work. Alongside the rich Sunday lunch such as “Eisbein richtig fett” (pork knuckle really fat), the “Bockwurst aus der Hand” (large frankfurter out of the hand) is a quick snack on weekdays.
However, the national soccer player Paul Breitner and the writer and Nobel Prize winner Heinrich Böll are two personalities „liked“ by Lechtenbrink who are definitely part of the left-wing spectrum. But political implications are rejected: Paul Breitner is liked for his game („sein Spiel“) and not for his role as a rebel who wore an afro , turned up for training with a Mao bible and insulted both coaches and DFB (German Soccer Association) officials. On January 10, 1972, Heinrich Böll wrote an article in the political magazine "Der Spiegel" denouncing the „Bild“ (largest German tabloid) newspaper's coverage of a bank robbery in Kaiserslautern on December 23, 1971 under the title "Baader-Meinhof gang continues to murder", which blamed the group for the crime without there being any concrete evidence at the time. In his story “Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum oder: Wie Gewalt entstehen oder wohin sie führen kann” he takes a critical look at the practices of the tabloid press. Yet to Lechtenbrink he does not appeal as a politically committed writer, but - in petty bourgeois devotion - because he has an impressive education („Böll, der so viel weiß"). The grandparents' generation is not perceived historically as the generation of perpetrators during the Third Reich, but in their timelessly stable role as emotionally devoted “grannies” („Omis“). No relation to social or political issues disturbs the hedonistic satisfaction between knuckle of pork, bockwurst, tenderness and lust („Zärtlichkeit und Lust“) with the self-confident (in context probably more ‘not uptight’ than "emancipated’) woman („Frauen selbstbewusst“).
An idyll is created here that is fixed in time and geography, but in its Biedermeier comfort, the elements that signal contemporaneity are interchangeable at will, which is also shown by the fact that the text, apart from the mention of Paul Breitner, could have been written in the 1950s - with the difference that the commitment to rock at that time would still have tended to be progressive. The complete absence of contemporary popular culture gives the list a conservative slant, with rock becoming ‘good, old, handmade’ rock as opposed to the electronic pop that was widespread in 1981.
The conservative nature of the song is also evident in the relationship to nature described: against the decay and destruction aesthetics of punk and the cold neon aesthetics of New Wave, i.e. urban aesthetics, “Leben, wo’s nicht lärmt“ (living where there's no noise) is set, against the broken aesthetic affirmation of the ugly and artificial, the immediate sensual experience of nature of barefoot mudflat walking („Barfuß geh’n im Watt“) That is another example of local patriotism like the following references to the North Sea coast, where nature is described as a place of vital power and beauty: Winds should blow strongly („Winde, die stark weh’n“), waves are beautiful when they are high („schöne hohe Well’n“), and rain should pour („Regen wenn er gießt“). Transferred to the interpersonal sphere, this means heterosexuality with the result of procreation as a counter-model to the homosexuality demonstratively staged in 1980s pop. The romantic ideal of love that dominates in rock and pop is replaced by a perception of the partner as a person who makes a special contribution to one's own well-being, because she is „liked“ in the same way as the listed luxury foods and leisure activities, only “ganz doll” - a declaration of love can hardly move much further away from the romantic ideal of love. „Doll“ is colloquial northern and north eastern German for „toll“, sehr, stark. “Hdgdl” (Hab dich ganz doll lieb) is a colloquial expression of love that is often used in text messages, WhatsApp or other chat services. The abbreviations “HDL” and “HDGDL” were the first abbreviations of German words on the internet. It is one of the oldest abbreviations used in German-speaking countries and is therefore almost extinct in current German youth language. However, HDGDL is increasingly being used by “digital immigrants”, i.e. people who have not grown up with digitalization but have to get used to all the technical innovations and, for example, the use of a cell phone.
The partial affirmation of wildness and naturalness has nothing revolutionary about it here, does not represent a counter-world as in Henry David Thoreau's Walden, but on closer inspection exhausts itself in a conservative, pure gesture of preservation: this is most evident in the professed affection for “Hunde, die noch bell’n“ (dogs that still bark): Which dogs would not do this, or not anymore? The confrontation with a counterfact of the song by the pop-punk band Die Piddlers makes the meaninglessness of the affirmation of barking dogs particularly visible, as it says: “Ich mag Hunde, die noch beißen / und in jede Ecke scheißen“ (I like dogs that still bite / and shit in every corner). In other words, characteristics are valued here that dogs are generally actually trained to lack.
https://lyricsondemand.com/die_piddlers/ich_mag/video
Finally, when the advertising department of Caro Kaffee had Lechtenbrink sing his song for a Caro Landkaffee commercial in a rewritten version, they probably wanted to use the cozy aesthetic already identifiable in the original to build their image:

Lyrics: http://swu.keep-moving.at/wp-content/up ... g-1991.pdf
This text can be read as an abridged version of the original song text: Right in the first line, a corresponding abstraction takes place: „Ich mag das Schöne dieser Welt“. Then, in keeping with the product, it is about domesticated nature (the - probably gentle – “Wind im Roggenfeld ” takes the place of the “Winde die stark weh’n”), the nights are no longer used in their entirety, but are only discussed “bis in die Nacht”. This removal of all supposedly ‘wild’ elements from the described world distorts Lechtenbrink's original to the point of recognizability: after all, it too has created nothing other than a ‘male’ coded version of the afternoon coffee.
Due to its easily varied enumeration structure, the song has attracted further counterfacts, including from Rolf Zuckowski, a German singer-songwriter. He has written and composed music especially for children. He varied the verses in relation to a child's world and ended the refrain with “und ganz doll mich”.

The latest counterfact “Song for Donald Trump” from the German satirical TV program “Extra 3” also ends like this, of course:
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/song-für ... yself.html
In addition to Anglo-American culture, Lechtenbrink's song also features two names from the Romance language world: the Italian-American actor Lino Ventura and the Belgian painter René Margitte. As a representative of surrealism, the latter falls outside the world of “Ich mag”. This reference to surrealism could have triggered Tocotronic's 2005 rejection of the very German lifestyle that the original celebrates. Their refrain, which replaces the original refrain, reads, like the song title, “Aber hier leben, / Nein danke“:

Lyrics: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/aber-hie ... hanks.html
In an interview with the magazine “Der Stern”, the band's frontman Dirk von Lotzow confirmed that Lechtenbrink's song with the repeated “Ich mag” influenced their song. The “Nein danke” has its origins in the slogan of the anti-nuclear power movement oft the seventies, „Atomkraft – nein danke“. “Aber hier leben, nein danke” is not just a song by Tocotronic, but also a quote that has held something of a cult status in Austria since 2005. The Austrian singer Gustav used these words to express her gratitude for the highest Austrian pop award: the “Amadeus”. The statement was presumably meant as a rejection of the right-wing policies of the then black-blue government under the conservative Wolfgang Schüssel and the right-wing populist Jörg Haider. The song title is also the title of an exhibition at the Lenbachhaus in Munich from October 15, 2024 to March 30, 2025 on the subject of “Surrealism and Fascism”. Surrealism was not only an international artistic movement, but also a political one. Its members denounced European colonial policy, organized themselves against fascist tendencies, fought for the Spanish Republic, were persecuted, went into exile and fell in the war against the National Socialists. They wrote poetry, deconstructed a supposedly rational language in a rational world, worked on paintings, collective drawings, took photographs and made collages. Surrealism was not associated with later emancipatory concerns as a style, but as a method, and was taken up by the 1968 movement and the Black Civil Rights Movement.
The reference to surrealism is palpable in the first song on Tocotronic's album “Pure Vernunft darf niemals siegen“ (Pure Reason Must Never Win).The artists of surrealism set themselves the goal of creating a superordinate reality, a “super-reality” within their works and expanding human consciousness. Artists and writers who made the dreamlike and fantastically absurd the subject of their works thus became the focus of this art movement. Dreams, states of intoxication, visions, wishes, desires and suffering were seen as a source of artistic inspiration. The lyrics juxtaposed Lechtenbrink'serenity with anger („Wut“), reason with magic („Zauberkraft“), binary logic with the compatibility of opposites („flüstern, dass es schallt“, whisper that it resounds), moderation with excess , belonging with self-exile, carefreeness with trepidation („erschaudern“).
The second verse contrasts Lechtenbrink's warming sun and walks on the mudflats in the strong wind with a night landscape with "clouds", “wind” and a light that brings an unspecified „you". What follows seems like the portrayal of a state of intoxication. Madness („Wahnsinn“) gives a fiery greeting, dreams („Träume“) give off sparks, white flowers bloom and angels before the fall are diamonds from outer space („Diamanten aus dem All“). Finally, the third verse distorts reality to the point of recognisability. In a mirage („Spiegelung der Luft“), the longing (Sehnsucht“) that never fizzles out („verpufft“, literally deflagrates) never dies out, endures. The splendour of life („Glanz des Lebens“) is realised in one day’. Gnawing doubt („der Zweifel, der an mir nagt“) becomes a positive state when fear fades („wenn meine Angst mich schnell verlässt"). The dance, the party of idiots („Idiotentenz“), the wandering in circles at night time („irren nachts im Kreis“) turn out to be a movement against diligence („eine Bewegung gegen den Fleiß“).
The album „Pure Vernunft darf niemals siegen“ is a musical frontal assault on reality of almost Handke-like proportions. The ironic mirror fencing of days gone by, when Tocotronic songs sounded like inner-world greeting cards from a sensitive boys' clique, has given way to an artificial, high-flown seriousness: In this fact-obsessed present, says von Lowtzow now, "it's almost revolutionary to deal with the spiritual and emotional. What used to be called escapism is now a radical political gesture." In the opening piece „Aber hier leben, nein danke“, the musicians' anger at what they call „flight to reality“ (von Lowtzow) is directed against the compulsion to feel that they belong in Germany; key words: dual citizenship (doppelte Staatsbürgerschaft), dominant culture („Leitkultur“). Von Lowtzow counters the diffuse climate of this appropriation with everything he really „likes“ - including: Animals in the forest at night, the self-exile, white flowers, angels about to fall.
Linguistically, the song is much more difficult than „Was ich mag“, if only because of its surrealistic imagery. It is striking that Tocotronic use“‘Ich mag“ with a direct object throughout, for example in the first line: ‘Ich mag’s ( mag es) wenn ...’. The many temporal clauses with ‘if’ are somewhat reminiscent of a famous poem by the Romantic poet Novalis: „Wenn nicht mehr Zahlen und Figuren“:
(https://www.deutschelyrik.de/wenn-nicht ... guren.html
Black Romanticism (E.T.A. Hoffmann, Mary Shelley) , Symbolism, Decadent Literature, Surrealism: That is the literary tradition in which the album stands. Dirk von Lotzow again: "I think that the times are very prosaic, extremely consensus-orientated and reason-orientated. That's why we want to counter this with a defiant kind of poetics. I would see that as quite heretical".

[MoniqueMaRie]

Hallo @Chrisinom
Wie lange dauert es eigentlich, so eine ausführliche Abhandlung über ein Musikstück (im aktuellen Fall sogar zwei) zu schreiben?
Ich würde bestimmt mindestens einen ganzen Arbeitstag dafür aufwenden müssen - 'mal abgesehen davon, dass Aufsätze nicht zu meinen Stärken gehören.

Ich komme, wenn überhaupt, nur am Wochenende dazu, es zu lesen.