Rammstein-martial and their lyrics brutally. Really? Most frequently, Till Lindemann uses the word “love” and from Goethe to inspire.
A lot of love and a lot of heart. That’s why the lyrics of Rammstein – turn at the very least, if you look at the number of the individual to the root of the word combined words of the seven Studio albums of the Band. Singer and lyricist Till Lindemann used in the German Lyrics on the most common words that have to do with “love”. Second place occupied in the Rammstein-Lyrics-Ranking-the “heart”, followed by “man” and “good”.
Sounds like Rammstein may also occur in a German Schlager-Show in which the audience claps happily inspired in the rhythm of a Viervierteltakts on the One and the Three. The good mood would pass, but probably, if it would hear the complete song texts:
A human being is slaughtered and eaten, a girl from a rapist in the basement held a man by a mob driven to death. Welcome to the Till Lindemann’s chamber of horrors.
Goethe and the German fairy tale in the case of Rammstein
However, not all of the Horror arises only in the spring of Till Lindemann. Some of the Lyrics, the front man of a classic of German literature for inspiration. Such allusions are to be found, for example, in Germany’s most famous Poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
It is in the ballad “Erlkönig”:
Who rides so late through night and Wind?
It is the father with his child;
He has the boy well in his Arm,
He holds him safely, he keeps him warm.
When Rammstein says “Dalai Lama”:
An airplane lies in the evening wind
Also on Board is a man with a child is
They sit safely, sit warmly
And go so the sleep into the yarn
In Goethe’s template, the Ghost whispers of the form of the Erlkönigs to the child and wants him to wrest his Kingdom. At the end of the ballad, of the son, dies in the arms of a riding father.
In the case of Rammstein, the “king of the winds, wants to bring” the boys; but finally, the Boy suffocated in the Arm of his father, who clasped him if the threat of a plane crash is fixed.
Bertolt Brecht, shock-headed Peter and Theodor Fontane
Yet it is not only in the case of Goethe: The Rammstein song “Rosenrot” borrows the title from one of the brothers Grimm collected the German fairy tale “snow white and rose red”, in the music video to “sun” appears in the fairy-tale character snow white, in “Help me” burn the I-narrator, because he is playing with fire – just like “Paulinchen”, from the in Germany very popular children’s book “der struwwelpeter”, in the Heinrich Hoffmann using macabre stories in the middle of the 19th century. The dangers warned.
The duel scene from “red Sand” is reminiscent of those from the novel “Effie Briest” by Theodor Fontane from the 19th century. Century.
Also the founder of epic theatre, the influential German playwright and poet, Brecht, Bertolt, is immortalized in the case of Rammstein:
And the shark has tears
And the run from the face
But the shark lives in the water
The tears you don’t see
In the play “The Threepenny Opera” of 1928 to “Moritat of Mackie the knife” is the name of it:
And the shark has teeth
And he bears in the face
And Macheath has a knife
But the knife you don’t see
In addition to the literary allusions, there are other allusions to German culture and history. Music Professor and musician Rob Burns wants to even see Similarities between the vocals of Till Lindemann and German cabaret singers of the Weimar Republic and draws Parallels between Rammstein costumes and concert stage design and the machine Aesthetic of the expressionist film “Metropolis” by Fritz Lang from 1927.
Rammstein Are Nazis?
The for Till Lindemann’s vocals, but also for the stereotyped portrayal of Nazis in international movies used to be so typical of extremely clear pronunciation of the rolling “R”, the Band Logo, which is reminiscent of the cross of the Wehrmacht, the Symbol of the armed forces in national socialist Germany, that Occur with a lot of fire, and monumental lighting – all of which reminds many people of the Nazi Regime.
As the Rammstein music video for the Depeche Mode Cover “Stripped” with images from a Film by Leni Riefenstahl, one of the most controversial Directors in film history, has published, led to an uproar and a lot of criticism.
Leni Riefenstahl was, indeed, on the one hand, an innovative filmmaker, on the other hand, they supported the Nazi Regime with propaganda films like “Triumph of the will” by Rammstein used “Olympia”.
Rammstein stressed in several Interviews that none of your members of far-right ideology attachments. In a new Video, the Band tries to explain once again the “Stripped”Video:
In the magazine “Cicero”, said Till Lindemann in 2015, about his Lyrics: “I want to analyze my texts, but in reality, I don’t even think so much about it.”
Rammstein and the German clichés
Rammstein represent what one would think in the foreign cliché about Germany, is a cultural scientist Melanie Schiller is convinced: “the stereotype, the representation of masculinity, the extreme representation of ‘hardened’, ‘idealized’ bodies, of male Power, camaraderie and perhaps also the fascination of Evil, of violence. Again and again the themes of guilt, Suffering, alienation, and the question of the victim and the perpetrator in Lyrics and Videos.”
Schiller is an Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen and investigated Rammstein’s relationship to the homeland, compared to that of the since the ‘ 70s in Germany, well-known stars Heino. Recently, she has also written a book on the exploration of German identity in the music: “sound tracking Germany: Popular Music and National Identity,” it says.
With irony against totalitarian ideologies?
“You could say that Rammstein use only German Stereotypes, but as a kind of German cartoon, grotesque Exaggerations, face-like representations of the English one,” suggests Schiller.
You mean: Rammstein’s Exaggerations were so coated that the Band put on totalitarian ideologies in General: “Rammstein highlights how ridiculous these ideologies are, to celebrate with you.”
After all, the Band has their roots as a punk in the repressive German Democratic Republic in the 80s.
Click here to read an article about the origins of Rammstein in the GDR.
German history in the Rammstein Lyrics
This story, the Trauma of the division of Germany into two States and the construction of the wall, you listen to the lyrics of Rammstein quite, says Schiller, especially in the song “My country”, which appeared on the Best of Album “Made in Germany” in 2011.
“This song works explicitly as a search for identity. It is to be constantly excluded, of an impossible identification with a country or a home, to be in the Inner split, a kind of schizophrenia even”, interpreted Schiller and added:
“If you look at the Lyrics, it says:
‘Where are you going, where?
I go with me from East to West.
Where are you going, where?
I go from country to country alone.
And nothing and no one invites me to Stay.'”
This eternal search, and the foreign, the feeling of unrest and uncertainty, says Schiller, are exactly the opposite of the meaning of the term “homeland” did.
Rammstein: open to interpretation
Schiller emphasizes, however, that this view is not the only one with Rammstein: “Rammstein’s music and the depictions in the Videos are very open to interpretation. You can also read the fact that you are an idealized Version of urdeutscher, to celebrate national identity. And this is why Rammstein are on the spectrum of political views across the popular. The assessment may depend on where you’re from, what you want to see and how to interpret. You can have both.”
So, the assassins of the killing spree at Columbine High School Rammstein Fans were probably for example. In the episode the time of the offence have ceased, some British and American radio stations to play the Band’s Songs.
Nevertheless, Rammstein, from the USA to Russia is extremely successful. The concerts of the current band’s upcoming Tour, which began in may in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, are almost sold out of all of them. But they understand how complex Rammstein is?
“My experience is that the Exaggeration and the irony of Rammstein are perceived abroad is much more direct. These Stereotypes come from the outside, and they are accordingly detected from the outside and easier to understand. And above all, they are from this perspective, it is less painful,” says cultural scientist Melanie Schiller. On the other hand, many of the nuances, references, and contexts are lost to you.
The kiss in Moscow provoked in the social media many comments
Some of the symbols of Rammstein are then to understand, but easier to use: the Rammstein guitarists Richard Kruspe and Paul Landers have given up on the stage in Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium, a kiss on the mouth. In Russia, this gesture is not as “Propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” is punishable.
“The music of Rammstein says something about the society in the Moment in which the music is being brought out. And the political Situation in Germany has changed greatly in the last – say – five years,” says Melanie Schiller, and thus plays on the debates about Migration and asylum in Europe and the Emergence of right-wing populism in Germany and the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany has been represented since 2018 in all 16 Federal States.
Rammstein is changing
Rammstein have used boats in the current Shows, hose, such as Refugees Crossing the Mediterranean sea used in combination with a welcome sign. For Schiller, the social change is clearly reflected in the case of Rammstein: “The questions after the Search, after the critically-Be have become more explicit. Rammstein is really unique, without being less nuanced.”
Maybe Rammstein can be a further highlight for the tour final on may 22. 23. August in Vienna come up with.
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Celebrities Rammstein FansRammstein-made in the USA known Director David Lynch…
American Director David Lynch, one of the most famous filmmakers in the world, had worship in the 1990s, with titles such as “Wild At Heart” and “Mulholland Drive” made a sensational run: critics and film fans Lynch for its extraordinary motifs and nightmarish scenes. The awesome music of Rammstein fits like a glove to some of the psychotic sequences in Lynch’s masterpiece “Lost Highway”.
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Celebrities Rammstein Fans… and musicians, Trent Reznor
For the Soundtrack to “Lost Highway”, and that secured Lynch’s collaboration with Trent Reznor, composer of film music, Industrial-Rock icon and head of the Nine Inch Nails. Reznors use of two Rammstein Songs in Lynch’s Soundtrack came to be the same for the German Band, a knight, and she made a sudden known in the United States – and the Hipsters have not only excited under the film .
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Celebrities Rammstein FansBackstage dismissed: Sean Lennon
The son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono is otherwise associated with significantly gentler music. How Rammstein keyboardist Flake recently told in his own radio show, went quite a bit wrong, as Lennon wanted to visit the rockers once backstage. Singer Till Lindemann threw him, as he “had understood John” instead of “Sean”, with the PostScript: “tell me”.
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Celebrities Rammstein FansLoves playing with clichés: Annett Louisan
Also Chansonnière Annett Louisan, compared with Rammstein, at the other end of the hardness scale. When asked why they still have the Rammstein Song “Engel” covered, she said to the Frankfurter Neue Presse: “I think it’s insanely clever, which will make Rammstein. Play is a great way to with archaic stereotypes and are understood to be international.”
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Celebrities Rammstein FansPromo stunt or real Steal? Heino
2013 star Heino changed completely its Look and approached with a cover album of Rock and Metal. One of his inspirations: Rammstein. This invited Heino even to an appearance at the Wacken Festival. However, the relationship between the musicians was marred, as Heino 2018 was covered by the Rammstein Song “Engel” on his last Album – to questions allegedly without Rammstein’s permission.
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Celebrities Rammstein FansCan Lindemann for writing: Roland Kaiser
A further blow legend is a self-confessed Rammstein-Fan: Roland Kaiser. He was of Till Lindemann even the lyrics “I know everything” writing. “I had met Till a couple of events and was also on his 50. Birthday. At some point I asked him, because that is a Form of cooperation, the two is their credibility,” said the Emperor to the “SZ”.
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Celebrities Rammstein FansWhat was never on the Nazi allegations: Slavoj Žižek
The Slovenian philosopher spoke to Nazi-allegations against the Band in 2008 in the “time”: “Rammstein undermine totalitarian ideology not with an ironic and distance, but through confrontation with the obscene physicality of their associated rituals and make you harmless.” Rammstein are not just any Nazis, but “undermined” their ideology even.
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Celebrities Rammstein FansAppreciate authenticity: Kiefer Sutherland
In the documentary “Rammstein in America” by the Austrian Director Hannes Rossacher, many American artists talk about their relationship to Rammstein. Among them are Iggy Pop, Marilyn Manson, and singer / actor Kiefer Sutherland (image). He says: “You need this Level of authenticity, style and culture – then people will understand your language around the world.”