Is Yung Hurn sexist? And Rammstein to the right? What do Germans love regarding Gabalier? The pop music expert Jens Balzer on lyrics in German, the topic of his new book “Schmalz und Rebellion”.
Die Presse: “You can only sing regarding sex in English,” says the band Tocotronic, “it can all too easily sound embarrassing in German.” Is that true?
Jens Balzer: We Germans generally have a problem with our language. Nowhere else is the question of which language to sing in so politically charged and controversial. This can also unleash artistic powers. The beat bands of the sixties rejected German as the language of their parents and the Third Reich. They saw English texts as a means of denazification. The Krautrockers of the seventies also sang in Latin, in ancient Greek or in dialects. Others write German, but treat it like a foreign language. They wrestle with it as with resistant material.
