Schlager Sunday

Ernie writes:

Guest post for you today folks. A few weeks ago in the comment section of this blog George asked Mister F to provide a guest post extolling the virtues of German schlager music. Mister F then sent me the material below. Neither of them seemed to think that I needed to have any say in the matter.

It was originally intended for next Sunday, hence the title of the post. You are getting it early because either (a) it is too good to keep you waiting; (b) I was away and am now under the weather with the result that I have not got round to preparing anything; or (c) both.

Enjoy! Or Endure! As  the case may be.

Mister F writes:

What is “Schlager”? Sometimes called Germany’s most embarrassing musical genre, it is hard to define exactly. Yes, there are simple repetitive patterns of music (often using a one-two oompah beat) with lyrics that are on romantic themes whilst shying away from anything controversial - but that is a broad category. 

And it travels far beyond Germany - ABBA are sometimes classified as schlager or, at least, as heavily influenced by it. Indeed, many countries entering the Eurovision Song Contest have frequently entered schlager style songs in the past, although this has been dying out more recently.

So, to start with, we have Joy Fleming representing Germany in ESC 1975 with “Ein Lied kann eine Brücke sein” (A Song Can Be A Bridge) - she came seventeenth out of nineteen countries. Despite its low placing Joy’s enthusiastic performance made this a favourite with Eurovision fans who mourned her death in 2017. Lyrics by Michael Holm whom we shall hear more from later. 

[Ernie notes: If Joy sounds familiar it may be because last year we featured the excellent "Daytime Nighttime" by her 1960s group Joy Unlimited here.]

Next up is the Greek-German singer Costa Cordalis with “Anita” which was top ten in Germany, Switzerland and Austria in 1976. Costa had other talents too: he was a gifted cross-country skier and was Greek national champion twice. In 1985 he even participated in the Nordic World Ski Championships for Greece. Sadly he passed away during 2019 aged 75 in Mallorca.

Drafi Deutscher’s best known song was "Marmor, Stein und Eisen bricht" (Marble, Stone and Iron Break). Nineteen-year-old Deutscher had ad-libbed the tune during an audition at Musikverlag music publishers by humming the melody and only singing the characteristic chorus line of "Dum-Dum, Dum-dum". 

Asked by songwriter Christian Bruhn what he intended to do with it to turn it into a complete song, Deutscher replied, "Det machst du! ("You do that!"), so Bruhn and lyricist Günter Loose subsequently completed the song and wrote the German lyrics to the melody. It became one of the most popular German hits ever with an English version becoming a million seller world-wide. 

Udo Jürgens, was an Austrian-born composer and singer of popular music whose career spanned over 50 years. He won the ESC in 1966 for Austria, composed close to 1,000 songs, and sold over 104 million records. “Griechischer Wein” (Greek Wine) is a song, produced by Ralph Siegel, which describes the longing and homesickness of Greek guest workers in the Federal Republic of Germany of the 1970s.

Ralph Siegel was also responsible for writing "Dschingis Khan" performed by the group Dschingis Khan at the 1979 ESC held in Jerusalem. It came in fourth place, but here is the group with a more disco-oriented version of schlager and the song “Moskau” which has had quite a long life resurfacing periodically such as during the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Moscow. The choreography in the video below is frankly amazing, get your dancing shoes on.

[Ernie notes: The frontman Louis Potgieter was actually South African, but is unlikely to feature in my African Odyssey series.]

The second video brings us more up to date with the current Queen of Schlager, Helene Fischer, and her most famous song "Atemlos durch die Nacht" (Breathless Through the Night), showing that schlager continues to evolve and survive. 

But before that we leave you with two classic earworms: first Michael Holm in a non-Christmas mood - “Tränen lügen nicht” translates as “Tears don’t lie” - and then Henry Valentino doing some stalking of the woman in the car upfront.

“Ein Lied kann eine Brücke sein”  - Joy Fleming

"Anita" - Costa Cordalis

"Marmor, Stein und Eisen bricht" - Drafi Deutscher

“Griechischer Wein” - Udo Jürgens

“Tränen lügen nicht” - Michael Holm

"Im Wagen Vor Mir" - Henry Valentino