TTT: Growing up with "Die Ärzte"

Hello dear Music Community.

It is time for another #ThreeTuneTuesday. For those not familiar with it, here's an explanation.

About 75 Weeks ago @ablaze started this incredible movement:

Every Tuesday I'm going to share 3 songs which I like to listen to and I invite your feedback in the comments below. Or why not have a blast of your own Three Tune Tuesday and mention me in the post and I'll come and find the post and hopefully upvote it. It'll be a sweet way for us all to discover new music.

I had so much fun last time presenting some German musicians, I want to do it again. 😁

It was pretty hard to restrict myself to three songs when there is so much good music and so many good artists in this country and I had so many songs I wanted to show you last time but a selection had to be made. Duh, It says so in the title ThreeTunesTuesday.

I also want to share about me and my history, after all, this is a blogging platform. Hopefully Hive will live on long enough for my son Hagen to read all this one day. Wouldn't that be awesome?

So from now on I will present one German band each week with three of their songs and my emotional connection to those particular songs.

Here we go, another round of Musica Germanica.

I already introduced you to Die Ärzte in my post last week. Discovering these three guys was the kick-off to my teenage years so it seems fitting to give you a clip of a live performance from those days.

Whenever Die Ärzte publish new songs there can be different meanings to the lyrics. Some (like this one) are just for fun, some make fun of themselves and some are critical towards politics/society.

In this case it is a funny song about a boy going through the woods with his girlfriend when suddenly a spaceship lands and aliens abduct her. He keeps on searching for a long time when at some point he receives a letter from her. It reads "I'm good but I think I won't come home".

They also always (really always) change many little details when performing live. Farin Urlaub, the lead singer, once said in an interview (sadly I do not have the source anymore) that it is on purpose to give the audience a reason to visit the concerts. Otherwise they could just stay home and listen to the record.

This song was on the first Die Ärzte album I bought, Das Beste von kurz nach früher bis jetze meaning The best from shortly after earlier until now.

I listened to that album so many hours and knew them all by heart. As did most of my friends. It was also the time we discovered beer (we were allowed to drink beer at the age of 16) and spent many hours with those songs around a campfire. (Hagen, don't drink and drive. I never did and nowadays I don't drink at all)

Hurra was published in 1995 and is about the reunification of the West- and East-Germany. In a satirical way they portray the time before as dark and unhappy while now we are all living in a utopia and everybody has a smile on their face.

In contrast to the elder generation (stereo-typically) proclaiming that "everything was better before" they draw an extreme opposing picture to level the field as the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.

Funny sidenote: The bridge contains the phrase

Europe, Asia, Africa,
Australia and America
Peace, joy and pancakes
They all are singing 'yeaaaaaaaaaaa'

During a geography class the guy next to me was asked to point at something on a map and while he was looking for something that he didn't know where to look for I was whisper-singing the first two lines to him which resulted in him yelling at me "Oh shut the f* up!". We both had to report to the principal that day.

Whenever that song starts I am back in that class room again, ready to sing that line. I would do it again, it was worth the detention!
(Hagen, if you read this while still at school and pull a stunt like that I will still be mad at you even though I did the same. My dad was not happy, either😜)

One of their more critical songs is Deine Schuld (Your fault)

The message in this song is repeated as the main chorus line as

It is not your fault that the world is as it is.
It is just your fault if it stays this way.

This song was published in 2003 when Die Ärzte already reached a much broader audience and it was regularly (sometimes still is) played on the radio.

I already surpassed my teenage years at this point and just finished military service for 18 months. Back in civil life I was still not sure where to go next and was listening to this song over and over again for a long time.

Even today I relive those times whenever I have a listen to that song.

I hope you enjoyed this music, whether you understand the lyrics or not.

Thank you for reading and listening.

Keep on rocking 🤘

Bis zum nächsten mal.

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The embedded videos and songs are not mine, nor do I own any rights to them. They are embedded from youtube and serve an illustrative purpose for this article

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