Tocotronic¶
611 words on German Media , German Music
For christmas, I bought myself a couple of old Tocotronic records, along with their new 10th anniversary B-Sides and videos CD/DVD bundle. Tocotronic are probably the most well-known band of the 'Hamburger Schule', singing mostly in German. Short lo-fi songs about the real problems in the world. Nothing electronic – as many people seem to suspect when first seeing the name.
Although all this makes much more sense when you understand the lyrics, they did also tour the U.S. a while ago and published a record The Hamburg Years with their songs sung in English. Ridiculously German English, that is, which can be quite funny but equally annoying. When singing in German they make good use of the language, sometimes using not-so-usual expressions and nice words that don't lend themselves to translation easily. Not for me, anyway. In the lyrics I quote below, for example, the word Überzahl feels a bit more special than simply majority.
Whatever I had of their first records was on a mix tape that Jean made for me (off a tape off a record on a bad stereo) in 1996. Not having a tape deck in regular use anymore, I found myself not listening to sufficient amounts of Tocotronic, thus giving me an excuse to acquire their 1995 Digital ist Besser and Nach der verlorenen Zeit albums with their out of focus photos as covers and the 1997 Es ist egal, aber album on vinyl. The latter one simply has the best record cover ever. Ducks rule.
In short, everyone should have Tocotronic records. At least of the old ones – I don't find their latest offering, Tocotronic too convincing, apart from the song Hi Freaks on it, perhaps. And the recently released 10th anniversary CD is very good as well, having many rare versions on it, including a few English ones. The DVD that's included contains all of their videos along with additional live footage and some extras.
Alle die grauen und die eher doofen Tage,
sind prinzipiell ja eher schwierig zu ertragen.
Doch letztenendes hat man ja keine Wahl,
denn sie sind ja in der Überzahl.
Und alle Mißgeschicke an den genannten Tagen,
sind prinzipiell ja eher schwierig zu ertragen.
Die Menschheit geht bekanntlich durch ein Jammertal,
doch stört das manche Menschen offenbar nicht einmal.
Manche Menschen sind, man muß es leider sagen,
prinzipiell ja eher schwierig zu ertragen.
Doch was soll der Kampf und was soll die Qual,
sind ja sowieso in der Überzahl.
In der Überzahl.
In der Überzahl.
In der Überzahl.
In der Überzahl
Other favourites include classic Die Welt kann mich nicht mehr verstehen, which is one of the few danceable songs and includes singing about switching to daylight savings time (a heartfelt screw youshould go to the Bloodhound Gang here: Their music isn't only creepy and cheesy but even the only slightly different topic I heard turn up in one of their songs isn't a first...). Then there is Digital ist besser, Du bist ganz schön bedient, Ein Abend im Rotary Club, Freiburg of which there are quite a few electronic remixes from a special remix EP Freiburg v3.0 together with Console who is a part of The Notwist there are of Jackpot; Ich mache meinen Frieden mit Euch, which always reminds me of most of the people I went to school with, Ich verabscheue euch wegen eurer Kleinkunst zutiefst, which reminded my of my boss when I did my civil service; Letztes Jahr im Sommer, Michael Ende, Du hast mein Leben zerstört. OK, those are quite a few I guess, so what's the point of this list?
