Michael Behrendt’s e book “Interrogated, misunderstood, appropriated” | EUROtoday

What is the BAP music “Verdammp lang her” truly about? Many individuals who have been born in Germany earlier than 1990 ought to be capable to sing its refrain with a point of melodic confidence. Anyone who is aware of Kölsch may also know roughly what Wolfgang Niedecken is singing about. Everyone else has a tough time. The entire factor feels like a nostalgia hymn of the kind “Man, that was great back then,” however you possibly can’t depend on such emotional hermeneutics. Nine years in the past, Niedecken mentioned in an interview: “I fled to a tiny town in Franconia, where I found peace on Shrove Monday to write a song about my father, who died the previous year.”

This is in fact sobering for individuals who beforehand considered the piece as a celebration banger. And it exhibits how irrelevant verses might be when the music and refrain sink into your ear deeply sufficient. See additionally “Born in the USA” by Bruce Springsteen, successful that’s nonetheless understood right this moment as a confession of a person for whom patriotism is a cause of state. But, however.

Michael Behrendt writes in his e book “Interrogated, misunderstood, appropriated”: “What is being sung about is a country that, on the one hand, sends the socially disadvantaged and other outsiders abroad to be killed, and on the other, burns them up as cannon fodder and mercilessly abandons the surviving war veterans.” Ronald Reagan did not perceive one thing about it, wished to make use of the music as a marketing campaign soundtrack in 1984, requested Springsteen – and was turned down.

Behrendt’s e book is about “99½ misunderstood songs”; It is a revised and expanded model of the 2017 title “I Don’t Like Mondays – The 66 Biggest Song Misunderstandings”. You would not even must cease at 99½. 111 misunderstood songs? No downside. If you place within the effort, there can be 222 songs in there. This exhibits what this and each different work of comparable design finally is – a modular system that may be expanded as desired.

But there is no such thing as a cause to complain, as a result of Behrendt’s goal can’t and won’t be to seek out readers who will work via his assortment from cowl to cowl. The quick essays encourage you to browse and pay attention, and there’s a QR code within the e book that results in the writer’s web site, from the place you possibly can click on on to Spotify. There is a six and a half hour lengthy playlist that begins with Udo Jürgens’ “Greek Wine” and ends with Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”.

As we will see, the vary is extensive. Songs from the Forties (comparable to “Tulipan” by Trio Lescano) seem within the choice in addition to songs from the previous fifteen years (Adele’s “Someone Like You”), classics (Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”) in addition to garbage (“Days like this” by Die Toten Hosen), and the genres are additionally properly blended – whether or not steel, pop, punk or nation, Behrendt doesn’t reveal any specific preferences based mostly on the compilation.

If you play the playlist chronologically, you may drop out after a couple of tracks, as a result of Westernhagen follows The Cure, David Hasselhoff follows Pink Floyd, Judas Priest follows Maroon 5. The order from the e book is retained, and it is sensible there, as all of the songs are assigned to completely different classes. However, it is tough to endure listening to this cocktail since you’re not within the temper. And it occurs that the basis of the phrase reminds us of the “voice” and the verb “to tune”: songs usually appear atmospheric at first, with the lyrics nearly turning into a minor matter and misunderstandings shouldn’t be stunning.

But what precisely is so “Unbelievable” about EMF? When Meat Loaf says he’ll do something for love besides “that” – what does “that” imply? How is it that the medical doctors’ hit “Men Are Pigs” turned an evergreen and Ballermann hit, although on the finish a background choir intones a couple of traces that one other punk band used to get themselves into a number of investigations years earlier than? Behrendt offers solutions and proves to be an excellent advocate for the songs whose project to him may have been: “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”.

Michael Behrendt: “Interrogated, misunderstood, co-opted”. 99½ misunderstood songs. Reclam Verlag, Ditzingen 2025. 282 pages, br., €18.