Wolf at the door

[imomus]

Well, I've been for a year now in Germany and I don't think I've said anything about the German socialist folk songwriters known as the liedermacher. The other day I saw one of the most famous of them, Wolf Biermann, on a programme celebrating the 90th birthday of theatre director George Tabori. Biermann and Tabori have both been involved with the Berliner Ensemble, the theatre Brecht and his wife Helene Weigel founded in East Berlin in 1949. On the TV festschrifte, Tabori sat there while old friends came up one by one and sang him a song or recounted an anecdote. It was rather moving to see this parade of socialist-humanist thespians in a kind of red-tinted This Is Your Life. Tabori was undoubtedly the coolest 90 year-old I've ever seen. His dramatic head of silver hair was swept back and he wore an elegant suit with lots of exposed seams (very Brechtian that, to 'show all working'). Well, Biermann came on and sang a song accompanied by his grating, almost out-of-tune guitar. There seemed to be an endless parade of verses, which, although I didn't understand, I pictured as a poem in the style of Gunter Grass, political yet somewhat absurdist -- some kind of political fable full of concrete imagery of food, cooking and animals.

As I pointed out in my essay dialogue The Electro-Acoustics of Humanism (talking there about Georges Brassens), the thing that often strikes me about these songwriters a texte -- generally thought of as literary figures who treat music as something secondary -- is that they're often texturally much more distinctive than we have any right to expect. Their voices and guitars make interesting sounds in themselves, so you can get a lot from their work even if you don't speak the language they're singing in. They use odd timings and tunings, their voices have an interesting quality -- rough, intelligent, sensual or angry -- and there's a compelling otherness in the way they seem to emerge from a world of literary humanism, of simple choices, passionate alliances and vanished struggles, a world where it was easy to fight for what you knew to be right. Their commitment is the opposite of the whiny, self-pityingly vague, narrowly-personal defeatism which characterises much capitalist music industry output: 'Radiohead emotion', I call it, but it could just as well be Norah Jones covering Nick Drake, with a commentary by Brad Pitt.

In the post-war period committed literary songwriters existed all over the world. In Italy they were called cantautore, singing authors, and that's really the most accurate description; they often had parallel careers as poets, dramaturgs and political activists. Leonard Cohen, although not directly engaged politically, is a familiar western example. Think of him singing 'The Partisan' -- 'freedom soon will come'. Think of the Chilean Victor Jara, murdered by the military dictatorship the US supported to replace the democratically-elected Salvador Allende. In Germany, think of Wolf Biermann singing his cover of Boris Vian's 'The Deserter':

Monsieur Le President
This letter is for you
Maybe you'll read it through
If you can find the time
I've just received today
My military orders
To go defend our borders
Before Wednesday night
Monsieur Le President
I've decided to refuse you
I wasn't put on Earth to
Destroy poor human beings
I'm sorry if you're mad
But this has to be said
My decision is made:
I've decided to desert



In the 50s and 60s America had committed folk singers: Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and the young Bob Dylan. But Biermann (born in Hamburg in 1936) was in a different situation: Germany in the post-war period was split between a capitalist and a communist state, with the line running right down the centre of Berlin. Socialist folk singers couldn't keep their head in the clouds. They had, right on their doorstep, a real socialist state. They had to decide whether to go there or not, for a start -- whether to collaborate with or criticize 'actually-existing socialism'. Biermann, after forming his socialist ideals in the West as a Youth Pioneer, went to study and live in East Berlin. Brecht composer Hanns Eisler befriended and encouraged him, and Biermann become involved with the Berliner Ensemble. But his experience of the East German police state led to a bitterly conflicted state of mind. While hanging onto his socialist ideals, Biermann soon fell foul of the socialist authorities. Accused of 'class betrayal' and 'obscenity', he was stripped of his East German citizenship. Whilst re-asserting his socialist ideals, Biermann spent much of the post-communist period attacking public figures for their links with the Stasi (the East German secret police) and trying to raise money for people, like himself, victimised in Honnecker's East Germany.

I haven't heard much Biermann, but I liked the Eisler-ish feel of his guitar playing and the bitter and cutting tone of his voice. I'm going to look out for his 1969 album 'Chausseestrasse 131' and maybe the video of his 1976 live show. You can hear some soundclips of Biermann at BMG's site. Type 'Biermann' into the slot marked 'Artist Suche' and a list of clips will appear.

Meanwhile, on a different subject, here's an mp3 of how BBC Radio 3's Mixing It presented the Momus and Anne Laplantine track 'A Spratch O' Thyme' on last night's show:

A Spratch O' Thyme (on Mixing It)

Comments

liechtenstein ahoy?

[gorillabiscuit.livejournal.com]

would you advise Liechtenstein?
i've lived for seventeen circulations.

i want to research my neurosis (damn germans. what have my ancestors done?)
hopefully it can't be traced very far back.

but perhaps i'm a member of an evil line.
who knows.
my childhood was wonderful. the holy grail was mine.

now i just have you and the jesus and mary chain to really keep me pumping.

momus, thank you.
thank you for the song "the life of the fields".
its melody peeks into my skull when i'm feeling particularly...modern.

excuse the excessive ellipses, i've just finished Notes From Underground and the method is stuck in my head.

so...Liechtenstein.

i like the sound of it.

so...
-tomas

Re: liechtenstein ahoy?

[gorillabiscuit.livejournal.com]

that was heartfelt, you know!

-tomas

[(Anonymous)]

About 10 years ago George Tabori mentioned in an interview, that he has no home and does not belong to any place or state, neither Hungary, nor Austria. This sounded really tragic to me – then. After some years I thought that a lot of people would say that, when it comes to the meaning of “home”. Biermann left his “home” BRD to find a new home in the DDR, and then, when he was on a concert trip in Westgermany he heard, that they won’t let him into the DDR again? What has he lost? Is it all about home or finding one’s home? Do you have to have the feeling of not-being-at-home to become an artist? Sergej Eisenshtejn once said, that an artist uses art to escape from the real world. So is home somewhere beyond the real world? I wonder where all those 6 Mrd. people do feel at home. You people who read this, where do you feel at home? I was running in the park for an hour and I was thinking that I feel at home when I run. And I feel at home when I paint. I don’t feel at home when I read or when I listen to music or when I eat or when I have sex, hmm, well, sometimes. I don’t know.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Things that make me feel 'at home':

* The Mac OS
* The internet
* Japanese people
* Art
* Music
* Humanist ideologies like 'socialism' or 'creativity'.

None of these are fixed identities. Just as one might still love one's home town even if it changed out of all recognition in the course of one's life, so I might feel as 'at home' with OSX Jaguar (basically Linux) as I did with System 6.2. I might get my 'Japan fix' from a 21st century convenience store or a medieval temple, despite the fact that they have almost nothing in common. And the music artists who bolstered my sense of who I was in 1997 have been replaced by completely different ones by 2004. (Goodbye Squarepusher, hello Animal Collective!) Which begs the question, am I constructing my identity or having it constructed for me? And yet, because my choices are 'eclectic' or 'minority' options, I feel very much in control of the process.

[(Anonymous)]

>I might get my 'Japan fix' from a 21st century convenience store or a medieval temple,
>despite the fact that they have almost nothing in common.

hummm...i dunno nick, you could say that both are kind of intensified, concentrated areas, each in their own right. a japanese 'konbini' is a kind of consumeristic 'nipple'; one flick and you've got the whole of the thing's undivided attention. how SHALL my yen be spent, is the question and the answer is: in the most plentiful, streamlined environs. same goes with the temple, a religious analogue. how SHALL i reach 'satori'? there are many ways, but the point is having them laid out before you, whose whim it is to pick and chose.

[(Anonymous)]

I didn’t understand the last part and I don’t know is it because my knowledge of english is not good enough or is my brain not working properly or all together. I maybe understand what you mean by feeling at home with japanese people. With me it’s the russian people. Whenever I hear someone talking in russian something starts glooming inside me. It could be the soul – they’d say (oh I’ve been brainwashed on that), or the memory, and the memory has its place in the heart, according to the masters of mumie-craft.

[sakuraamplifier.livejournal.com]

As a 'person who reads this', what makes me feel at home:

-Making music, especially recording.
-College-it seemed so unreal and yet so comfortable when my highest responsibility was to learn new things.
-Trees, flowers, grass, water

I thought I would feel very much at home in Japan, but I've never been more homesick. Still, it was a good homesickness, the kind that helps you define who you are.

[(Anonymous)]

I like the idea of a good homesickness. one of the great things about living somewhere else is that noone really knows anything about you and you are like a blank sheet of paper without anything written on it yet. The first reactions of the new people around you make you learn a lot about yourself because you find and develop sides of your character you never expected. If there are any reactions. As far as I know the japanese people are not so big in giving direct feedback. I had a japanese boyfriend once and it took me month to understand that it is really a bad thing to say “no”. for example. He wouldn’t tell me.

[geeveecatullus.livejournal.com]

The sea makes me feel at home.
Some songs.
Some friends.
Fairly boring, probably.

A quick one before hitting the door

[febrile.livejournal.com]

I'm really quite interested in what you have to say here, and will follow the links you've offered when I get home this evening.

That said, I've a quick (?) question for you: what are your thoughts on Dylan? Relic of a byegone musical paradigm? Genius? Funny old man in silly hats? You've referenced him in a couple of your songs, and "Who Is Mr. Jones?" is certainly a freshing throwing-of-the-hat-into-the-ring bit of commentary on "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," but what I'm curious about is, specifically, whether or not you like him.

Re: A quick one before hitting the door

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I don't know how I feel about Dylan, really. I like some tracks off his mid-60s albums, stuff like 'Subterranean Homesick Blues', 'Ballad of a Thin Man', 'Desolation Row'. I also like the faux-naivete of 'John Wesley Harding'. But I find him arrogant, metaphysical, conservative. He's a faker who tries to pass himself off as the real thing, so there's some sort of bad faith there. And he's a sphinx who seems, finally, to be concealing something dull. Basically, I feel far away from him. People like Leonard Cohen or Serge Gainsbourg make perfect sense to me, but Dylan is blurry somehow. I think basically it's his conservatism. I feel the same way about Paul McCartney. I feel like I understand Lennon, but McCartney seems far, far away.

[(Anonymous)]

how strongly would you consider yourself a differently-textured cantautore? (btw, are political motivations necessitated in the use of that term?)

[kojapan.livejournal.com]

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unabashed gushing

[plastickitty.livejournal.com]

I saw you perform in Tallahassee, FL a couple of years ago and thought you were wonderful. I have a photos of you acting as a cat and as one of Henry the VIII's wives. Thank you so much for that. It left such an impression on me.

Just found your blog today. I hope you don't mind that I added you.

[theophile.livejournal.com]

I wrote out a relatively long response to the following quote:

Their commitment is the opposite of the whiny, self-pityingly vague, narrowly-personal defeatism which characterises much capitalist music industry output: 'Radiohead emotion', I call it, but it could just as well be Norah Jones covering Nick Drake, with a commentary by Brad Pitt.

which was articulate and, I would hope, interesting, but which was entirely predicated on the assumption that your comment tying together Norah Jones, Nick Drake, and Brad Pitt was an interesting and allusory counterfactual (the link you attached to those names just came up, for me, as a BBC radio playlist). just before hitting "Post Comment" I had a thought, Googled for "norah+jones +brad+pitt +nick+drake" and found out that you were referring to something real. thanks for ruining my day.

if I hadn't just gotten my copy of the new compilation "Made To Love Magic" in the mail today, or if the instrumentation on the included version of "Magic" (less Spector-ish strings, more stumbling, groove-riding bass) had been an ounce less perfect, that series of mental connections might have ruined Drake for me forever. please be more careful in the future.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Googled for "norah+jones +brad+pitt +nick+drake" and found out that you were referring to something real. thanks for ruining my day.

The link now leads to the actual documentary, so you can hear the appalling Norah Jones cover version if you want your entire week spoiled. Time is a fruit tree, but first the car commercial and now Norah... strange fruit indeed.

[leani-axe-power.livejournal.com]

youkouletti momus <3

[klasensjo.livejournal.com]

at www.gemm.com, you will find the album you're looking for and other biermann records.

when in berlin, have you ever run in to Bruno Stroszek? do you happen to know what he's doing? he's sort of a brecht-ian character, I suppose, and one of the greatest moviestars of all time.

[sarmoung.livejournal.com]

Biermann looks curiously like Lee Hazelwood in that second photograph, but I'd be hard pressed to think of any connection between the two.

I often wonder where these songwriters are now (if anywhere, maybe the necessary sprouting conditions have vanished here in the UK). Much as I quite like Nick Drake's guitar style, I miss the engagement of this other strand of songwriting. Vladimir Visotsky, who I'm sure you know of, can't sing or play for toffee in the Norah Jones way of thinking, but, oh yes he can. But then people in the Soviet Union (and in other places here and now) would crowd halls to hear poets and actually pay attention to them, because the poetry mattered. This sort of passion is rare to find these days here and so many young singers sound almost inaudible, which is definitely a Drake trait.

I stumbled across your journal by accident - a welcome surprise.

[steviecat.livejournal.com]

That Norah Jones Nick Drake cover was the most unpalatable thing I've heard on the radio in ages. Truly awful pretend sophistication.

Bards of Old

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm... I wonder if Momus ever goes back and looks at recent commentary additions to his old journal entries?

Interesting what Momsu has to say about Wolf Biermann; my German relations (now in Berlin) brought the Wolf-Man to our door some time ago: here's "Aah-Ja!" from 1974 and "Lieberslieder" from 1975. I wish I could share them with you; they have great East Berlin-radical chic covers. Lyrics included, but alas I still don't read German.

Watching "Don't Look Back," the Dylan documentary, for the first time recently, I began to understand better how Dylan built up his mythic stature in the early 1960s, especially among the British. Just watching Donovan watching Dylan like an awe-filled acolyte was an education itself. I've also always been ambivalent about Dylan--especially since I know he's nothing more than a Midwesterner like myself--but I concede that he has written some timeless, not just timely, songs. But shouldn't Dylan's fakery be what Momus is most interested in?

One thing I remember reading a long time ago somewhere: Dylan telling his record producer (circa 1964) that he wanted to leave in the sound of his denim jacket's metal buttons randomly striking the body of his guitar--proof that even the inauthentically "authentic" Bob Dylan was itnerested in the textural quality of his recordings.

zyx