*
If my grasp on the finer details of my mother-tongue weren’t
so rusty, I would be writing this in German. It’s an unfortunate side effect of
living twenty years in Canada,
four of them at an Anglophone university, and an addiction to North American
geekdom. However, just because I can’t write essays in it, that in no way means
that I don’t still understand it, or that I have lost the ability to be moved
and inspired by my native culture. Here are a few artists which I admire very
much, and which I really believe would be a valuable contribution to today’s
US-dominated global village. People should remember that there is more to our
country than World War II, the Berlin Wall, and Angela Merkel’s hairstyle.
A few of you may have heard of three rather embarrassing
children’s movies from the 1980’s called The
Neverending Story. He wrote the book. I can assure you, those movies are
anything but faithful, except maybe for the first one – which still leaves out
the heart and soul of the story. It’s about an eleven-year-old boy named
Bastian, who is basically us – all the awkward, lonely people who have ever
clung to fiction as an escape from an uncongenial world. In his case,
literally, as he’s transported into the dying world of Fantastica and given the
task of using his imagination to bring it back to life. A dream come true,
right? Yes – but also a nightmare, because when an unhappy eleven-year-old has
the power to do anything and be anyone he wants, there is no knowing what the
consequences might be, for him and for both worlds.
This story is the backbone of my existence as a writer. My
mother read it to me when I was six, and since then, I have never cracked it
open without some new and wonderful discovery. It’s like a Dali painting:
dreamlike, eerie, bursting with the unexpected, and yet with its own internal
logic. And it’s not the only book he wrote, either: there are Momo, The Night of Wishes, and Jim
Knopf, all of which are just as magical, and which should have fanfiction pages filled to
bursting, if not for the fact that no other writer can do Mr. Ende justice.
Remember Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, Petrarch’s Laura collection,
and countless other works of love poetry by a white male for centuries? The
ones that claim to immortalize their beloved without ever mentioning what she
(or he) is like? Well, not this one. This man writes songs about women that are
actually about them. Whether they are
real or not, you can see and hear them perfectly in the music: the cold-hearted
woman holding on to a dying relationship for vanity’s sake (“Airplanes In My
Head”); the exasperating Stepford wife with a need for constant harmony (“Love
Like Glue”); the golden-haired poet struggling against terminal illness (“The
Way”).
Unlike some men, Mr. Goenemeyer is not afraid of being
vulnerable. I’ve seen him in concert, singing his heart out until I thought the
microphone would explode. I was so happy when he brought out his
English-language album, I Walk, and I
wish for as many people as possible to hear it.
Her real last name is Holfelder, but the reference to the
sword-wielding Biblical assassin is well chosen. This Judith’s weapons of
choice are her songwriting mind, her mouth, a microphone, and the instruments
of her three fellow members of the band Wir
sind Helden (We Are Heroes). Her targets are consumer culture (“Die
Reklamation”/”Return Counter”), the objectification of women in the media
(“Zieh’ dir was an”/”Put On Some Clothes”), even the music industry itself
(“Zuhälter”/”Pimps”). (I wish I could show those, but the video in the link is
the only one I found with any decent English subtitles.) She has spoken out
against tabloid magazines, especially a famous one called BILD, which she sees
as a political tool with an insidious effect on its readers. She is a
practicing Buddhist and has released a single in Japanese. And she does all
this with a lively sense of humor, a rapid-fire Berlin accent, and a lovely, quirky style that’s
all her own.
What I admire most of all, though, is the band’s ability to
quit while they’re ahead. In 2012, they went on an indefinite hiatus in order
to focus on their families. Whenever I read about the latest celebrity divorce
or drug scandal in the newspaper, I’m amazed at how the basic instincts of
caring for yourself and your loved ones seem to die out as soon as you become
famous. Who knows? If more actors, singers and athletes took a break every few
years, we might end up with a much higher quality of entertainment.
I realize that there are groups much more under-represented
than one wealthy, mostly white country in Europe.
But when I saw The Monuments Men last
week, with all its dead Nazi horses being kicked for the hundredth time, I just
had to write something. I understand that the atrocities of World War II should
never be forgotten, but no one reduces the USA
to a nuclear bomb or Canada
to residential schools. There is so much more to my country, to every country,
than the worst of it.
Anyone who’s reading this, please consider reading Goethe, watching The Lives of Others or Mostly Martha, or following one of my
links.
Sources:
Ich wusste gar nicht, dass Herbert Grönemeyer ein englischsprachiges Album heraus gebracht hat!
ReplyDeleteWas Michael Ende betrifft stimme ich dir natürlich zu :-). Mich hatte nur erstaunt, dass du nicht auch Reinhard Mey genannt hat.
LIebe Grüße
Franziska
Reinhard Mey übersetzt sich nicht gut ... außerdem ist drei eine bessere Zahl als vier.
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