This song from a German band (Toten Hosen) reminds me of U2 at their anthemic best

[highplainsdem]

Last edited Tue May 24, 2022, 01:49 PM - Edit history (1)

and since I love U2's rock anthems, I was thrilled to hear this.

I want to thank DFW for mentioning them, since I'd never heard of them before, though this video has nearly 70 million views and the song was #1 in Germany and a Top 10 hit in a couple of other countries where the single also went platinum.

Wikipedia on the band and this song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Toten_Hosen and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tage_wie_diese

From the article on the song:

The video to the song was directed by Joern Heitmann. It features a group of 20- to 30-year-old men and women who meet to spray graffiti. The flow of the video is disrupted with scenes of the song's recording, live performances of the band and of supporters of the German football club Fortuna Düsseldorf.

Page with the lyrics, both the German and the English translation:

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/tage-wie-diese-days-these.html

[Bayard]

1. Bookmarking

[Harker]

2. I haven't heard anything from them since '87.

They've come a long way.

[highplainsdem]

3. Yes, they have.

Definitely not just punk rock any more.

Their lead singer, Campino, shocked some of his fans recently. He'd been registered as a conscientious objector when young, but Russia's invasion of Ukraine has changed his feelings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campino_(singer)

https://www.n-tv.de/leute/Campino-wuerde-heute-dienen-article23332613.html

[highplainsdem]

4. Btw, if you hadn't heard anything from them since '87, you missed their 1988 concept album

based on A Clockwork Orange, which had this song which was a hit for them, and which has been covered by lots of other bands;

It's one that's still a concert favorite, judging by what I found online including this 2015 video:

Wikipedia on the song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hier_kommt_Alex

Lyrics and translation: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/hier-kommt-alex-here-comes-alex.html

[Harker]

5. Thank you very much.

I'll give it a spin with much intetest. There's at least a splash of punk remaining in my outlook.

[highplainsdem]

7. You're welcome! And since you're a punk rock fan, you'll probably like this video of Joey Ramone

being interviewed by Campino in 1989. There's a German narrator but both Joey and Campino are speaking English and you can hear most of what they're saying. (I'd forgotten how tall Joey was. At 6'6" he towered over 6'2" Campino.)

And here's a 1996 interview in English, with Campino talking about punk rock:

[Harker]

8. What a treat.

I'll look forward to this, also. Just this past Saturday, a couple of cool Bitburg Pils as inspiration, I introduced my wife to The Ramones. I'm not at all sure how she missed them previously.

Also, your original post brought to mind having been invited by a friend, tickets in hand, to see U2 play Red Rocks on their "War" tour. The weather seemed sure to result in a rain out, so I declined. Anthemic, indeed, and a key event in their careers.

I have several regrettable "the time I didn't..." stories.

I appreciate your thoughtfulness, hpd!

[Harker]

58. Apropos of Campino speaking favorably of Television, and of the importance of

musical evolution...

[highplainsdem]

60. Great song! Easy to see why Campino mentioned them a few years later,

even while reminding people of the importance of the Clash and other early punk artists. Saying in 1998 that "you can still listen to them in 2000."

I don't think any of them expected in 1998 to still be touring and making new music in 2022.

[highplainsdem]

6. They've also interviewed and criticized Angela Merkel, who had to apologize to them once.

Well, frontman Campino (Andreas Frege) interviewed her back when she was Germany's Youth Minister:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campino_(singer)

Campino has acted as a journalist on several occasions. In 1994 German magazine Der Spiegel printed his interview with then Youth Minister Angela Merkel in which he asked her about her experiences with drugs, alcohol and pop music. In 1993 he asked Paul McCartney similar questions. He interviewed Joe Strummer, singer of The Clash for SZ magazine in August 2001, one year before Strummer died.

When Merkel won re-election as chancellor in 2013, she sang "Tage Wie Diese" even though the band had made it clear they did NOT want any political party using the song. They called her karaoke version a "car crash"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/25/die-toten-hosen-angela-merkel

and she apologized for it.



Merkel was also among the G8 leaders Campino joined Bono, Bob Geldof and Youssou to criticize during their 2007 concert.

This first, very blurry video has the song preceded by Bono calling Campino back to the stage, apparently to translate (Campino's mother is English and he's bilingual). The second video is just the song.

[FakeNoose]

9. Wow that's a nice song, and I see what you mean about the U2 comparison

Are those scenes from Toten Hosen's old concerts interspersed on the video?
If so, those Germans get pretty crazy at their concerts.

[highplainsdem]

10. The music video in the OP is a mix of scenes/crowds including

football fans. There's a quote from Wikipedia about the video in the OP, along with links for more info, since so few of us here in the States have ever heard of them. There's a link to a translation of the lyrics, too, which helps explain the video, since the song is about "communal ecstasy" according to something I read.

And if you look at reply 4 above, one of my replies to Harker (who had heard their music back in the '80s), you'll see video, the second one in that message, from a 2015 concert.

[highplainsdem]

11. Just found the article again where I'd seen the song's theme

described as "communal ecstasy" -- and this also has interesting background on the band:

https://dw.com/en/40-years-of-german-punk-rock-band-toten-hosen/a-61257232

[FakeNoose]

15. Thanks, this is very interesting

I'd heard of them probably 25 or 30 years ago, but I had / still have no interest in punk music.

However thanks to your post here, I can see that I walked away too soon. These guys have evolved into more of a classic rock band and they have a great sound. I'm going to look on Spotify, where I can find a shit-ton of German music.

[electric_blue68]

12. Yeah, I can hear some U2 influence in there...

U2 is a favorite of mine since '81, seen them a bunch of times.
(I started seeing bands [my mom would take me, my sis + others] when I was 12 in '65)

As for Y'Soussou I got to see him join Peter Gabriel in an outdoor concert at The UN(!). They did "Shaking the Tree", "Freedom (No More Apartheid)" - my 2 favorites.
It was a gorgeous dry ?Summer day, beautiful blue skies, the sound echoing off the glass buildings north of the UN.
(I think it was a memorial concert)

They had to wait some bc Y'Soussou got stuck at Customs.

Also got to see The Clash ?3x's.

[highplainsdem]

13. This might be Toten Hosen's most U2-influenced song, though I like a lot of their

other songs I've checked so far.

As I mentioned in the OP, I'd never heard of them (or don't recall hearing of them) till DFW mentioned them, without mentioning any songs in particular. I checked YouTube immediately and "Tage Wie Diese" was at the top of the results when I searched for the band's name -- and I could translate the title, at least, from what I remembered of years of German in college, and that made it more interesting -- and I was just stunned by it.

Still am, after having listened to it dozens of times since first hearing it.

They've been together 4 decades now, and they still have enough defiant punk/rock spirit that they just (last month) released new video and a new version of their 1986 song "Wort Zum Sonntag."

https://www.n-tv.de/leute/Die-Toten-Hosen-texten-Wort-zum-Sonntag-um-article23261864.html

https://www-n--tv-de.translate.goog/leute/Die-Toten-Hosen-texten-Wort-zum-Sonntag-um-article23261864.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

"70 is the new 60"
Die Toten Hosen rewrite "Wort zum Sonntag".

In June, Tote-Hosen singer Campino celebrates his 60th birthday. When he was young, he probably never thought that he would still be into punk at this age. That's why the lyrics to the song "Wort zum Sonntag" don't really fit anymore today. The band now rewrites him without further ado.

It wasn't until he was 60 that he wanted to tell "what used to be," says Tote-Hosen frontman Campino in the band's classic "Wort zum Sonntag". But shortly before his 60th birthday on June 22nd, the singer, whose real name is Andreas Frege, doesn't want to know much about it anymore.

On the occasion of their 40th anniversary in April, the Düsseldorf punk rock band rewrote their song. Now the corresponding line reads: "I'm not yet 70, and I'm not close either. And only then will I tell you what used to be." The Toten Hosen announced that it was a new recording in the "70 is the new 60, you lollipops!" mix.

"40 years is a long time and we are just grateful for everything we were able to experience and survive," the statement said. "On this day we think of everyone who has accompanied us on this journey, especially those who can no longer be with us today, and of you!"

-snip-

New video below. Wikipedia on the original song, with this excerpt from the article on that 1986 album:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damenwahl

"Wort zum Sonntag" is a punk anthem titled after a couple of German church TV shows and a tribute to Johnny Thunders. It features a line "Solange Johnny Thunders lebt, solange bleib ich ein Punk" (As long as Johnny Thunders lives, I'll stay punk). After his death the band didn't perform this song for a long time[citation needed]; later they used another line: "Hey Johnny, kannst du uns grad sehen? Wir vergessen dich nicht. Wir werden überall von dir erzählen, damit dein Name ewig weiterlebt" (Hey Johnny, can you see us right now? We won't forget you. We will talk about you everywhere, so your name could live forever).

German lyrics with the English translation here:

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/das-wort-zum-sonntag-word-sunday-reffers-church-preach-sunday.html

[electric_blue68]

14. 40 yrs? God bless em! 👍

[highplainsdem]

16. Campino has said in recent interviews that he doesn't think the band will still

be together 10 years from now.

But I could not begin to count all the musicians and singers who've said they'd retire, then changed their minds.

And this is a band still recording new music, not just playing oldies. And still very much focused on social justice.

[highplainsdem]

17. Another very impressive song from the same album as the song in the OP.

I wasn't sure where to post this, thought of posting it as a new OP in Music Appreciation, but that would make it the third OP I've posted there recently with a German song title, and I don't want anyone there wondering if I hope they'll learn German. (I learned it once, forgot most of it.)

You can find both the German lyrics and the English translation for this song -- "Draußen vor der Tür" or "Outside the door" -- here:

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/drau%C3%9Fen-vor-der-t%C3%BCr-outside-door.html


This is a really powerful, heart-wrenching song. Even more so since I found out through some additional reading that it really is autobiographical, about lead singer Campino's difficult relationship with his father.

[FakeNoose]

18. Thanks this is a really nice song

I like getting the English translation too, because my German is a little rusty.

[highplainsdem]

19. You're welcome! Wanted to share because this is an amazing song, and not at all what

you'd expect from a band still usually described as punk rock.

I know just what you mean about language skills being rusty. Mine are nearly hopeless. This is a great way of being reminded of the language, though.

And that's a brilliant, albeit heartbreaking, video.

I wish so much that Toten Hosen were better known here, that they'd recorded more in English.

[highplainsdem]

20. "Tage Wie Diese" isn't a song I'd've expected to sound so

good performed this way -- acoustic and with just one guitar -- but I happened across this today and was really impressed by it. Btw, these band members go by nicknames, since three of the five have the first name Andreas. Campino and Kuddel are Andreas Frege and Andreas von Holst.

This video is from what was called a picnic concert in Berlin last August.

[highplainsdem]

21. Found a bit more background, written in English for a change, on Die Toten Hosen

and particularly their lead singer, Campino (Andreas Frege). Lots of articles on them in German, but I wouldn't try to translate them myself for anyone else, and Google Translate can be awkward and sometimes simply wrong.

This is from British-Canadian historian and travel writer Rory MacLean's blog. There's no date on the blog that I see, but it's apparently sometime in 2011, since there are references to Toten Hosen's 30th anniversary "next year," and that anniversary was in 2012.

https://rorymaclean.com/blog/on-campino/

The music for the new album they planned to put out before their anniversary tour hadn't been written yet, and it's interesting to see Campino expressing doubts about how well it will turn out. The album they released in 2012, Ballast Der Republik, was their most successful, and I've posted two songs from it here, in the OP and reply 17.

Campino's very modest about his songwriting, calls himself "a beginner" -- though DTH had sold 15 million albums by then and won awards.

MacLean writes about Campino's work as an actor:

Campino’s creativity has reached beyond the world of music. In 2006 he played Mack the Knife in Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, directed by Klaus Maria Brandauer. ‘Brandauer was so patient with me as an amateur,’ he recalled. ‘I have only praise for this great man.’ The show became the year’s most successful German theatre production. Then in 2007 Wim Wenders wrote the script for the feature Palermo Shooting specifically with Campino in mind for the leading role.

But for me the most interesting bit was what Campino had to say about a song MacLean asked him about, a song written for his mother, who was English (Campino's father was German, and a judge; his grandfather was a supreme court judge there).

But as I grew up I became a bit of a troublemaker, dressing as a punk, singing the Sex Pistols’ “God save the Queen… the fascist regime… she ain’t no human being”. My mother took it to heart, and we became estranged for a time. She’d make me my breakfast yet leave the room when I came in.’

‘Then in 2000 Die Toten Hosen were at the start of a big tour. I tore a knee ligament and the tour had to be cancelled. The next day my mother fell ill. I took it as a sign to spend time with her in Düsseldorf. Over the next six months I saw her almost every day, and we had the best conversations of our life. We had the chance to make everything straight between us. That Christmas my sister and I were with her when she died.’

I wrote Nur zu Besuch in 15 minutes, and didn’t once revise the lyrics which is rare for me. The song was my way to say thank you to her. Since its release thousands of people have written to me, saying that they’d played it at a funeral or that it had helped them through their own loss, telling me that they recognised a little of themselves in Nur zu Besuch.’ Campino sat quietly for a moment, turning the coffee cup in his fingers. ‘I like the idea that everything isn’t purely accidental, that some things are meant to happen, even if we don’t understand why. I like to think that my mother would enjoy the song.’

I'd run across video of the song last week, didn't know any of the background other than that it was about his mother, but I'd found it tremendously moving, like the song about his father that I posted above.

This is the link to the lyrics with the English translation, which I hope you'll read first before listening to the video. It's about a visit to her grave, and the video doesn't make that clear. Some explanation of the video here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nur_zu_Besuch

Lyrics/translation: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/nur-zu-besuch-only-visit.html

Btw, all the links I've posted for translations are translations done by fans on different websites. Campino is bilingual, but as far as I know he's never done English translations of his own lyrics.

I'm going to post the official music video, the one described by Wikipedia, below a live performance of the song in 2005, in his home town of Dusseldorf. Look at the audience reaction to the song.

[Ocelot II]

22. "The Dead Pants"?

Somewhere, in the same dungeon where vast herds of people labor to give names to paint colors, others are concocting rock band names.

[highplainsdem]

23. LOL! It means "deadbeats," according to articles I've read.

I also read that at one of their early concerts, whoever introduced them got one of the letters of the second word in their name wrong and introduced them as Toten Hasen, or the Dead Hares or Dead Rabbits. (Hasen is another of those words that if paired with another adjective means something very different, because in German "old hares" means "old hands" or "old-timers."

And yes, it's a weird name.

But a great band.

Now one of my favorite bands.

And after years of wishing there were new bands around as good as U2 or other favorite bands from the classic-rock era, I was thrilled to find out there was a German band that good, one that's created a lot of music over four decades, music that's still new to me.

I do wish they'd recorded in English instead, the way Golden Earring did when they chose English over their native Dutch.

Campino is English on his mother's side, even became an English citizen recently, dual citizenship, and he and his siblings were raised to speak English as well as German. (see the video interviews above, one where he's talking to Joey Ramone, another where he's being interviewed by a British journalist.) But I don't think as high a percentage of the German population speaks English as the Dutch population does (I've read that over 90% of Dutch adults know English), so writing their songs in English would have left a lot of their German-speaking audience out. And with Austria and Switzerlad included with Germany, that's a population of over 100 million, several times the Dutch population, so recording in German was a smart decision (and since they started out as a punk band, making a decision to aim for the English-speaking market, the US and UK, might've seemed too commercial).

I've found myself wishing they'd at least recorded English as well as German versions of their most popular songs, too, so those could've been hits here, but German is different enough from English that it would be really difficult to come up with a good translation using the same number (or close to the same number) of syllables per line.

I had two years of German in high school and a few more years in college, and I've forgotten a lot of it, but it's been coming back as I listen to more of their music. Still not enough to follow interviews in German very well, but I did find something really interesting with subtitles that I'll be posting later.

And besides their music being so good, they've been political and social activists for decades, something I think DUers appreciate. I don't demand that artists whose work I like share my political beliefs (I can separate the art from the artist), but it's great when they do. And DTH won't let themselves be used for politics they don't agree with. As I posted above, Angela Merkel ended up apologizing to them for using Tage Wie Diese to celebrate an election victory. And when a Swiss band espousing far-right politics changed the lyrics of the song to promote their neo-nazi ideas, Die Toten Hosen immediately shut them down with a lawsuit.

[Ocelot II]

24. Must be a colloquialism, since "hosen" literally means trousers,

as in "Lederhosen," leather pants. I like the literal translation better, since it's in keeping with the tradition of weird rock band names like Smashing Pumpkins. Since I'm not a fan of rock in general I probably wouldn't like them, but I do like the name.

[highplainsdem]

25. Yes, I know "hosen" literally means trousers. Some of their fans refer to them simply as

the Trousers (the way many Golden Earring fans refer to the Earring).

But they chose the name for the colloquial meaning. Plus, I would guess, its weirdness.

Campino's first band was called the Central Committee for the City Center, or Zentralkomitee für die Innenstadt -- which, not surprisingly, got shortened to ZK for Zentralkomitee. He and guitarist Andreas von Holst, nicknamed Kuddel (whom he sometimes appears with as an acoustic duo, see replies above), along with Andi Meurer (the third member of DTH named Andreas), who'd been a roadie for ZK and became a bass player, formed DTH in 1982.

These young punk rockers weren't working class revolutionaries. Those three, at least, had grown up in a wealthy suburb of Dusseldorf. Von Holst came from Baltic nobility that had fled to Germany. Campino's (Anreas Frege's) ancestors included the wealthy merchant who built the Frege House, Fregehaus, in Leipzig, at the start of the 18th century, a house that is now a hotel. And Andi Meurer had become involved in punk rock while an exchange student in the US, which led his father to throw him out of the house when he returned to Germany, which is how he ended up working as a roadie and meeting the others.

But they definitely had a punk attitude, both toward politics and their own music. I read that when they started out they'd play almost anywhere, including birthday parties. for free, as long as they were provided with enough beer (of course) and maybe a promise that any damages they did would be covered. (They completely trashed a bar once playing football/soccer inside the bar after the gig, but the bar owner reportedly was very happy with what happened anyway, so I suspect more beer was involved then.)

I hope that even though you aren't a fan of rock music, you will at least listen to the song in the OP, Tage Wie Diese, which is a classic rock anthem as good as the best of U2. And to Draußen Vor Der Tür, the song posted in reply 17 above, which might be more to your taste since you don't like rock.

Campino conveys so much emotion in the video for that second song that it didn't surprise me at all that he's been asked to do some acting. But I haven't seen any video of his performance as Mack the Knife in that successful Berlin production of Brecht and Weill's Threepenny Opera. And the reviews of the feature film Campino did, director Wim Wenders' Palermo Shooting, were brutal, though that was blamed on Wenders. (I haven't seen the film, have seen some clips including long ones on YouTube, and my first thought was that the scriptwriter should have been fired...but director Wenders, who'd long ago had a great reputation, WAS the scriptwriter, too, and wrote the screenplay specifically for Campino.)

They're a very interesting band, and it's a shame they're almost unknown here in the US.

[Ocelot II]

26. Did listen, didn't like; just not my taste - too noisy and screamy.

I'm a classical music fan; I switched back to Mozart.

[highplainsdem]

27. Okay. Thanks for giving it a listen! I like classical music, too --

I like almost all types of music, and I once listened mostly to classical for a while, after a back injury that made it difficult to change LPs or radio stations on my stereo. I just put the radio on a local classical music station and left it there most of the time.

But I've always preferred rock, possibly because I wasn't exposed very much to classical music as a kid. My mom loved pop and rock music, my dad loved jazz, and both loved big-band music.

The first real exposure to classical music that I can recall was when I was in 6th grade, or maybe 5th (not sure, since this was a small town school, grades 1-12 in one building), when the music teacher played parts of 21 symphonies for us...and then tested us on them a few weeks later, playing them again and seeing how many we could identify. We had been allowed to take notes when the symphonies were first played for us, but I have no idea what I wrote down because I didn't have the knowledge/vocabulary to describe classical music. But I was the only one in the class who got all 21 right when tested, and the teacher seemed more than a little surprised.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I draw energy from music, hear it really intensely.

So for me, discovering a new band (well, new to me) as good as Die Toten Hosen is like finding a new power source. Or a new drug. Not that I ever took drugs (well, not very many, and not very often; just trying to find the right analogy here).

[Ocelot II]

28. The problem that I have with rock and most other popular music

is that it tends to be loud, harsh, and not at all beautiful. It can be fun, clever and entertaining - I greatly enjoyed the last Stones concert I went to - but it doesn't feed my soul. It doesn't make me feel like I'm hearing something special, that I should be grateful to the universe that it exists. It's not exalting or inspiring, at least not to me. It's just entertaining at best - but even so, I don't get especially energized from it - and it's intensely annoying at worst. Some popular musicians are talented and imaginative but none are geniuses. In 400 years even the best of them - the Stones, the Beatles, Prince, etc. - will be forgotten, but Bach and Mozart and Beethoven won't be. People still remember and perform the music of even older composers like Josquin and Dufay (15th c.) and Monteverdi (early 17th c.) because their music is gloriously, incomparably beautiful and soul-fulfilling, and it will survive as long as humanity survives. Keith Richards might still be around, but like him, the Stones and all the others will just be antique curiosities.

[highplainsdem]

29. We'll have to agree to disagree. Great classical music survived because it was written down.

It was important enough -- and often expensive enough for composers' wealthy sponsors/patrons -- to be saved.

And the best non-classical traditional music survived because it was good enough to be sung/played enough in people's homes and informal social settings that it wasn't completely forgotten in a few years, or a generation.

Now, with recordings, popular music will survive as originally recorded.

I don't believe anyone expected the music of the '60s and '70s to stay as popular as it has, 50-60 years after it was recorded. And a lot of older popular music has stayed popular.

Some of it will fade into obscurity, of course. But the best will survive and be listened to hundreds of years from now.

And I love that we can hear the original voices and instruments that made it popular.

[DFW]

31. I have to agree. The best of all genres will survive, especially now.

Music written down has a good chance of surviving as originally intended, although creative versions always pop up. From Bach to Scott Joplin, brilliant composers have usually been both preserved AND re-invented. The same goes for oral folk music. In northern Africa, isolated populations of Sephardic Jews still sing the Spanish songs of their ancestors in 15th century Spanish, which is little changed from today's Castellano. Agricultural workers have folk traditions everywhere, too, and the most memorable melodies also survive, whether the spirituals of the slaves in the south of the USA or the women in the fields of Bulgaria. The songs get remembered, sometimes renamed, aranged for professional interpetation, but they are the classical music of the people from whence they spring:

[highplainsdem]

33. Love that video of a Bulgarian choir! Thanks for posting that!

Very good point about music being reinvented as well as preserved, over time.

I love almost all music, if it's well done. I see it all as important human expression.

So I don't automatically view classical music as superior to all other music, though I know there's a tendency to do so.

And well-played guitar, played with feeling as well as skill, sounds as good to me as a full orchestra does.

Ocelot II had said that classical music is "exalting and inspiring" while popular music isn't. That popular music isn't "something special, that I should be grateful to the universe that it exists."

I can't agree with that. Partly because I don't thank the universe for music created by humans, though there's certainly a lot of natural music in the world that we can appreciate.

I admire musicians, but they're only human, and that includes the best classical composers -- some of whom would probably have created popular rather than orchestral music if they'd been born in modern times.

I love Beethoven's Ode To Joy, for instance. Have loved it from the first time I heard it.

But I do get the same feeling of exaltation from Tage Wie Diese, so I can completely understand Angela Merkel choosing THAT song to celebrate an election victory, even though the band had already warned all political parties not to use it, and she ended up having to apologize to Campino.

Video from German TV about that controversy, with a very brief clip of Merkel singing, and a statement from the band shown at about a minute in.

That statement from Die Toten Hosen (Google translation below, with a few corrections that I hope were correct) was a general statement directed to all political parties in August 2013, a month before Markel used the song and ended up apologizing.

We distance ourselves from the use of our music in election campaigns.

Lately we have been made aware several times that our song, "Days Like This One," is used again and again at various election campaign events, above all by CDU and SPD. Unfortunately, the legal situation is such that we cannot do anything about it.

We have never had a problem when our song brings joy to a wide variety of people, from the punk shed (??? - not sure of the exact translation here) to the Oktoberfest. But we feel it's indecent and incorrect that our music is played at political election campaign events. Here it is clearly abused and taken by people who are in no way close to us. The danger that people can get the idea that there is a connection between the band and the content promoted there makes us angry. It would have been a sign of decency in our eyes to ask us beforehand whether we have a problem with the use of our music on these evenings, and to respect it if we don't.

We wish everyone involved an exciting election.

Campino did throw his suport to Merkel four years later: https://infotel.ca/newsitem/eu-germany-merkel-rock-star/cp1262009600 .

But in 2013 she felt she had to apologize for using Die Toten Hosen's song:

https://www.dw.com/en/40-years-of-german-punk-rock-band-toten-hosen/a-61257232

The faux-pas made such waves that the newly re-elected Chancellor Angela Merkel personally apologized to Campino over the phone: "Dear Mr. Campino, I'm calling because we misappropriated your song on election night. Don't worry, it will not become the next CDU anthem. But that's such a nice song you've written there!"

[DFW]

34. For the record

Tote Hose (nominative has no "n" at the end), while literally meaning "dead trousers," is a 20th century German slang expression that means "nothing going on."

As a German going to a Trump rally and seeing 20 people there, 19 of whom are Fox staff and security, would report back, "Tote Hose," i.e. total boredom, which this band obviously never was.

[Ocelot II]

36. An interesting name for a very loud rock band, then!

[highplainsdem]

38. They're a very interesting band. And one with a great sense of humor.

[DFW]

41. I think the irony was intentional

"Nothing going on here"--if you're deaf, that is!

[Ocelot II]

39. Interesting how colloquialisms usually don't translate well, and

sometimes they aren't recognized as colloquialisms at all.

[highplainsdem]

40. They do make learning a language, not to mention translating, a lot

harder.

I can definitely understand your initial reaction to a literal translation.

[Celerity]

45. tote hose is German slang for very boring, nothing happening

[Ocelot II]

46. I suppose dead pants is a pretty good euphemism for nothing happening.

[Celerity]

47. exactly

[highplainsdem]

48. Here are a couple of articles on it:

https://germanyinusa.com/2019/01/04/word-of-the-week-tote-hose/

https://blogs.transparent.com/german/untranslatable-german-tote-hose/

That second article says that when applied to a person, "toten hosen" would translate roughly as "deadbeats" -- which is also what the Wikipedia article on the band said.

The name was meant to be cute/funny back when they were young punk rockers just starting out, and it's more so now that they have their 12th #1 album and are on their 40th anniversary tour with stadium shows sold out, several hundred thousand tickets sold.

It fits the same way Led Zeppelin fit that band.

[Celerity]

49. 'deadbeats' is an incorrect translation, the correct translation is boring, dead, nothing happening

and comes from a sexual idiom basis (dead pants as in impotent, lack of libido, no action sexually)

'Deadbeats' are slackers, people who refuse to work, live off the dole, don't pay their debts, do not fit into general society well.


From the Wikipedia article (which does make an error in the very beginning by saying it 'figuratively' means deadbeats, which is not the case) here is the reason for the name, from the band itself:

they chose the name Die toten Hosen – which literally translates as "the dead trousers" but connotes the German idiom "hier ist tote Hose" or "hier herrscht tote Hose" meaning "there is nothing going on here", "it’s boring here" – over Die Pariser. According to Andrea Berzen, Campino preferred the former because it implied that their concerts might not be sold out, but there might be "tote Hose" on the nights.

here is the German Wiki on Tote Hose, you will see that it backs me up

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tote_Hose


also see

https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Hose

WENDUNGEN, REDENSARTEN, SPRICHWÖRTER

tote Hose (umgangssprachlich: Ereignislosigkeit, Schwunglosigkeit: in unserem Dorf ist echt tote Hose; nach der Halbzeit herrschte tote Hose)

IDIOMS, IDIOMS, PROVERBS

dead pants (colloquial: uneventfulness, lack of momentum: in our village it is really dead pants; after halftime it was dead pants)

[highplainsdem]

50. Fwiw, "dead beat" means too tired to move, and it had that meaning

before the term "deadbeats" was used and had a socioeconomic meaning added.

I really don't want to keep talking about Die Toten Hosen's name. though, since it has no more relevance to their music than does Led Zeppelin taking that name because they were told they'd go over like a lead balloon.

I think we can agree that in both cases they're silly names that don't describe the bands.

[Harker]

57. I had always assumed the name derived from the WWII era

German term about frightened soldiers having done no harm to the enemy, but having 'killed their pants' (by means of involuntary defecation.)

This was bolstered imy mind by the insert for "Bis zum Bitteren Ende" featuring kiddie photos of the band members as "kleine hosenscheisser" and 40s horror film stills depicting their future appearance.

I hadn't looked into it, though.

[highplainsdem]

59. That's a really interesting possibility, and one I'd never

considered before. I just did some googling and couldn't find the album insert you remember, though I did find a great 1998 performance of "Bis zum bitteren Ende" -- which I'll post below.

I think from Campino's latest remarks about the name, though, which I posted about in reply 55 yesterday, that they'd meant the name as a rejection of the German punk bands choosing names about excitement/destruction.

“Our name, on the other hand, was a total understatement, which we liked. It also had the advantage that nobody could ask for their money back if they were disappointed after a concert. What do you expect from dead pants – it’s your own fault, so to speak if you pay for it.”

Whatever the name, they're a great band. Even a lot of their early stuff, and I say that even though I was NOT a punk rock fan.

Here's that 1998 video, and the lyrics, German and English, are here: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/bis-zum-bitteren-ende-bitter-end.html

[DFW]

30. I have a few issues with the English translation which might help the lyrics make more sense

"Unendlichkeit"--literally "no-endedness," better translated in context as "eternity" or "permanence."

"zu den Rheinterrassen" While literally, it does mean Rhein terraces, the song refers to the river bank area of Düsseldorf (where the Toten Hosen are from) that is literally named the Rheinterassen. It is an area of packed cafés, bars and restaurants, where "it's happening" in Düsseldorf, especially in the summer or on weekends.


"schwimmen mit dem Strom" -- Someone either works for the utilities or took the wrong dictionary translation. While "Strom" does mean "electricity" when applied to physics or engineering, when in the context of water, it means the current as in the flow of the water. I think the Hosen can be counted on to know that swimming with electricity can be a shocking experience

PS--I had to show that lyrics translation about the "electricity" to my wife, who is German, and she broke out in laughter. She thought I was joking. She couldn't believe that someone actually published that as a serious translation.

Edit again--my wife insisted on sending the "electricity" translation to our daughters, and she kept messing up the words because she was laughing so hard.

[highplainsdem]

32. LOL! Thanks for the tips on the translation, and I had to laugh reading about how amused

Last edited Mon Jun 6, 2022, 10:29 PM - Edit history (1)

your wife was.

As I mentioned elsewhere in this topic, the translations I've linked to aren't official. They weren't written or even approved by the band. The site I've linked to most often has multilingual music fans offering their best translations, and sometimes you'll see comments offering suggestions for changing part of the translation, and sometimes you'll even see more than one translation offered on different pages.

LOL again at "I think the Hosen can be counted on to know that swimming with electricity can be a shocking experience." I'm sure they know that.

When I looked at the verse about getting caught up in a wild crowd that's celebrating

Wir lassen uns treiben, tauchen unter, schwimmen mit dem Strom
Drehen unsere Kreise, kommen nicht mehr runter, sind schwerelos

We let ourselves drift, become submerged, swim in the electricity
Spin in our circles, cease to come down, are weightless

I read "electricity" in the sense of "excitement" -- being caught up in the excitement -- so it didn't immediately strike me as being wrong. But I agree with you that in the context of being "submerged" DTH had meant going with the current.

DTH have released some acoustic, unplugged, recordings, with "ohne strom" in the title.

I agree with you completely that the translator should have used "eternity" rather than "infinity" for "Unendlichkeit" in the context of the song.

And thanks for explaining about the Rheinterrassen. Coming from a rural part of the country where fields are sometimes terraced to slow erosion, I actually was picturing wide terraces, either in parkland along the Rhine, or maybe wide paved terraces that were still mostly empty (maybe meant partly for flood control, but basically an open area like Mallory Square in Key West, which fills up with tourists and street performers at sunset), and not the "area of packed cafés, bars and restaurants" you described (I'm looking at Google images of it now).

[DFW]

35. This being my adopted home town

Anything concerning Düsseldorf runs the danger of getting a far more long-winded answer from me than you probably wanted!

[highplainsdem]

37. No, that reply WASN'T longer than I wanted. I'd never call any other DUer long-winded

anyway, considering how long my posts can be. And your post was great information, which I always appreciate, especially coming from someone who does know the subject really well.

And it was a nice bonus to hear how funny your wife thought that translation was.

[highplainsdem]

42. Since Dusseldorf is your adopted home town, I thought you might like

this video, which showed up when I searched YouTube this morning for recent videos from or about Die Toten Hosen.

It's a beautiful city. And since most people here won't know, any more than I did, what the Rheinturm is: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinturm

[highplainsdem]

43. Die Toten Hosen are starting their 40th anniversary tour as the first band EVER to have 12

#1 albums on the German charts, thanks to their new album, their anniversary album, being the #1 album now.

Not bad for a band that's been around for 40 years.

And they sounded great at their concert in Flensburg last night:

[highplainsdem]

44. Die Toten Hosen (DTH) kicked off the stadium portion of their 40th anniversary tour last

night. After having played for 7,000 fans in the arena at Flensburg on Tuesday, they headlined a concert for 40,000 in Köln (Cologne), starting at 8:30 after a few support acts, and not ending their second encore till a few hours later. (Setlist of 30 songs at https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/die-toten-hosen/2022/rheinenergiestadion-cologne-germany-3b4318b.html .)

They've sold several hundred thousand tickets for this tour, and the reviews I've seen have all been raves. I'm assuming they'll also have a live album and DVD of this tour later. This has been a huge production for them, with a crew of over 100.

They opened with the band introduced if they were actors in a Western (not the first time they've used the Old West imagery; see https://democraticunderground.com/103476690 ).

and they were still going strong and sounding great during the second encore, with the fans packing the stadium happily singing along on "Tage Wie Diese":

Btw, the reason you hear fans singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" there in that first video, just before the band is introduced, is that it's a concert staple, and reportedly lead singer Campino's favorite song.

[highplainsdem]

51. I've already said I wish Die Toten Hosen had recorded their songs in English, so they

would have been more popular here, but I could understand the difficulties of trying to transate German words, many with a lot more syllables than English, while keeping the meaning close and the lines the same length.

I'm still just learning about this band, and I just found out that they did record an English version of one of their biggest hits from the '90s, lyrics that were quite good -- apparently because Campino (Andreas Frege) got the help of an English musician and songwriter, Honest John Plain (John Splain), whom I'd never heard of before.

They re-recorded that song and a few other favorites for an album released in Japan. Not sure of the marketing decision here, but Japan's always been a great market for rock music, and a lot of Japanese speak English. I'm guessing the album flopped, since as far as I know they never tried it again, though they have done three "Learning English Lesson" albums that are covers of British and American songs, other artists' songs, that they liked. The most recent one, Lesson 3: MERSEY BEAT, has a really nice cover of the Searchers' "Needles And Pins."

The song Honest John Plain helped them with the lyrics on is a song I really like to listen to. OTOH, I'm not sure I would have wanted it released in gun-crazy America, for reasons you'll see and hear. There would certainly have been a lot of critics.

The song is from a 1993 album by DTH and the single was a hit for them in Germany in 1994. It's still a concert staple and the fans were singing along when they did this as the 20th song in a long set two nights ago.

The Lyricstranslate.com site I often link to has two English translations of the song. The first, at https://lyricstranslate.com/en/alles-aus-liebe-all-out-love.html , has a literal translation of the song which would NOT have worked for recording the lyrics in English.

The English lyrics Honest John Plain helped Campino with -- MUCH better lyrics -- are at https://lyricstranslate.com/en/alles-aus-liebe-all-love.html#songtranslation .

Those lyrics are also in one of the first YouTube comments under the video below of the English version.

The second video below is the official music video for the German market. The video was done by renowned photographer/director Hans Neleman,

Third is video of the song, a fan favorite, at Friday night's concert in Cologne. That popped up when I first looked at YouTube today, because of their algorithms, and I was looking at the Wikipedia page about the song when I realized I hadn't looked for the English version. So I did, and found there had been a great translation. I just wish they'd recorded great translations of some other hits...

[highplainsdem]

52. There's a recent documentary on the band, WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES, uploaded to

YouTube by the film company so you can watch it for free. I'll link to it below.

It follows Die Toten Hosen on part of their 2018 tour, and it's really enjoyable to watch, but be ready to adjust the volume since the concert footage is LOUD.

I like some of the songs included in it, but not all of them. (I'm not sure I could name any artist whose entire catalog I like, and DTH is no exception.)

What I like most is the footage of the band offstage, whether relaxing or rehearsing, remembering their days as young punk rockers or worrying about aging. Joking around or talking very seriously about politics.

Which got very serious during that tour, since it included a free concert DTH headlined in Chemnitz after some violence there, from immigrants, spurred violent protests that included far-right extremists. DTH and some other artists gave that free concert to support the people opposing the far-right extremists. And as Campino put it, it was important not to let people frame the debate as left versus right. It was "everyone with common sense" versus the far right.

The problems in Chemnitz had made international headlines and were discussed here on DU as well -- https://upload.democraticunderground.com/10142145319 and https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100211075634 .

If you're interested only in that section about Chemnitz, it starts at 1:06:00 with remarks about politics by Campino at the start of their concert in Grafenhainichen, 8/31/2018, three days before the 9/3/18 concert in Chemnitz. After delivering those remarks, Campino launches into their song "Pushed Again," one of their few songs with English lyrics.

https://www.dietotenhosen.de/en/releases/songs/pushed-again

1:09:02 through 1:11:30 is offstage chatter partly about Campino being unhappy with the sound in his headphones, sound balanced to try to compensate for a temporary partial hearing loss first mentioned earlier in the film.

At 1:11:30 Campino is complaining about attempts to portray the bands and the people objecting to the rightwing violence as left-wing extremists. Bass player Andi Meurer remembers how the band was always targeted by RW extremists. The police are already out in force when they reach Chemnitz, and the band wants to make sure all their fans will stay peaceful so they won't get blamed for the problems. Campino opens the concert with their fans chanting "Nazis out" to show their opposition to the far right, before launching into their old anti-xenophobia song "Welcome to Germany" (German and English lyrics here: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/willkommen-deutschland-welcome-germany.html ). That's followed, up through 1:15:52, by Campino and Breiti (Michael Breitkopf) talking about the need to act against any xenophobia you see -- the need for what Campino calls "civic courage" -- and how the song is still as relevant today as it was when they wrote it in 1993.

There's a lot more to the documentary that's interesting besides the political relevance, but I did want to highlight that for DUers.

[Elessar Zappa]

53. Thank you for this!

[highplainsdem]

54. You're very welcome! Hope you'll enjoy it.

[highplainsdem]

55. LOL! Some news on what Campino thinks of the band's name, and his own nickname.

https://switzerland.detailzero.com/music/19457/Singer-Campino-finds-band-names-so-uncool.html

At 60, Campino likes to look back on his long career with the Toten Hosen – but he finds the band name “so uncool”. The rock singer told the German Press Agency on the 40th anniversary of the pants and on his own milestone birthday on June 22nd: “If we could change anything in retrospect, we would certainly give ourselves a better name.”

However, it stands “in the temporal context” of the German punk of the 70s and 80s. “Back then, all the groups wanted to sound really tough and cool, so they called themselves something like Bloody Tat or Daily Terror,” Campino recalls. “Our name, on the other hand, was a total understatement, which we liked. It also had the advantage that nobody could ask for their money back if they were disappointed after a concert. What do you expect from dead pants – it’s your own fault, so to speak if you pay for it.”

The stage name Campino “actually came about because I started throwing these candies around with my first band ZK at some point,” says the musician, who was born Andreas Frege in 1962. “I had a suitcase that said ‘The Big Campino’. That was my ammo depot. I took a handful and threw them into the audience – and I had my nickname.”

The explanation for his own nickname doesn't exactly match what I'd read earlier, that it was because of food fights when he was in school. But Campino was still in school while in his first band, ZK.

[highplainsdem]

56. Die Toten Hosen made international news a couple of nights ago by interrupting their concert

setlist to sing "Happy Birthday" to a friend.

It made the news because the friend is Jurgen Klopp, former German soccer star turned soccer team manager who now manages Liverpool FC, nicknamed the Reds, one of the best soccer teams in the world. (They call it football. It's soccer.)

He's a good friend of DTH lead singer Campino.

Article on this in the Daily Mail: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10924649/German-punk-group-Die-Toten-Hosen-wish-Liverpool-boss-Jurgen-Klopp-happy-birthday.html

Liverpool FC posted video about it on their YouTube channel -- video that made me wince near the start as the British narrator mispronounced Die Toten Hosen (the article "die" in German is pronounced dee, not like the English "die" -- and I'd expect Brits to get that right, especially with a German team manager):

The second song there is Liverpool's new chant, to the tune of the Beatles' "I Feel Fine" -- "I'm so glad that Jurgen is a Red."

Until I read that article in the Mail, I hadn't heard about Klopp and Campino singing together while drunk.

But I found this on YouTube:

Campino is crazy about soccer. His autobiographical book Hope Street is largely about some of Liverpool's recent games.

I know next to nothing about Jurgen Klopp, but found this on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Klopp

Political views
In an interview for The Guardian in April 2018, Klopp expressed his opposition to Brexit claiming that it "makes no sense" and advocated for a second referendum.[249]

Politically, Klopp considers himself to be left-wing. He told journalist Raphael Honigstein:

I'm on the left, of course. More left than middle. I believe in the welfare state. I'm not privately insured. I would never vote for a party because they promised to lower the top tax rate. My political understanding is this: if I am doing well, I want others to do well, too. If there's something I will never do in my life it is vote for the right".[250]

Not surprising that his political views match Campino's. I doubt they'd be friends otherwise.

[highplainsdem]

61. Found a review in English of DTH's most recent concert, in Munich on the 18th.

Well, it's sort of in English. Might be at least partly machine translation. This page in English

https://www.archynetys.com/concert-campino-the-toten-hosen-in-munich/

appears to be a translation of this review in German

https://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/kultur/konzert-campino-die-toten-hosen-in-muenchen-letztes-wort-zum-sonntag-id63028846.html

and there are some awkward sentences with what are apparently failed translations. But it's still an interesting read, with a lot of background on the band, as well as comments by the reviewer as he goes back and forth between viewing this as just another tour, an anniversary tour, and wondering if this might be the band's last tour, given what Campino said recently about not seeing himself still doing this ten years from now.

There's some background on the band I hadn't run across earlier, like this:

And Campino also remembers the first performance in Munich in 1983, in a youth center in Erding, where the band was allowed to stay overnight at the time, but at some point found out that they had been locked in there – and therefore in the early hours of the morning knotted sheets from the hold to freedom.

Having seen video of Campino climbing all over the scaffolding, as at this concert in Dusseldorf in 2005 --

which he doesn't do any more (he turned 60 two days ago) -- I'm not surprised that he and his bandmates would have tied sheets together so they could climb out a window to escape. (Btw, if you're wondering about what he was singing as he climbed that scaffolding, a slightly clumsy English translation of the German lyrics is here: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/paradies-paradise.html .)

There are a lot of references in that review to rivalry between German cities, rivalry that I think is mostly expressed through rival sports teams these days, though it goes way back. I'd been vaguely aware of Germany's long history as a collection of rival city-states, probably at its worst during the Thirty Years War in the 17th century, but I'd still been surprised by how much those rivalries still matter and can affect even rock bands. DTH are mentioned in this Wikipedia article about the rivaly between Dusseldorf and Cologne: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalry_between_Cologne_and_D%C3%BCsseldorf

The Cologne cabaret artist, Jürgen Becker, commented on the musical rivalry that in the "village on the Düssel" there had been "Tote Hose" (dead pants) for a very long time - which is why the most famous band from Düsseldorf chose this name. At a concert in Cologne, Die Toten Hosen played the song by Marius Müller-Westernhagen "Ich bin froh, dass ich kein Dicker bin" (I'm glad I'm not a fatty) but with the lyrics "Ich bin froh, dass ich kein Kölner bin" (I'm glad I'm not a Colognian), which Wolfgang Niedecken of the Cologne group BAP found courageous.[60] The Cologne a cappella group Wise Guys countered with the song No, no, no!, lamenting the origin of the holiday acquaintance from the city "where the beer tastes as it is called".[64]

In May 2016, the British singer Adele was confronted with the rivalry between the two cities at a concert in Cologne. When she brought a ten-year-old girl from Düsseldorf on stage for a photograph, boos rang out from the audience. Adele told them to "Shut up". Later she inquired why they did not like Düsseldorf: "Can somebody enlighten me?" She was told, "that's just the way it is". She recommended they, "Get over it!".[65]

LOL. Adele was right.

DTH will be giving concerts in their home town of Dusseldorf tonight and tomorrow night. That's also DFW's home these days, but with his schedule I doubt he's going to either concert. I hope he'll give us a report if he does, though, and I imagine DTH will be making a lot of news in Dusseldorf while they're back there on this tour.

[DFW]

62. You're correct in that I won't be at either concert

But my daughter and her S.O. did drive up from Königstein/Taunus, and left us with their two daughters so THEY could go to the concert.

[highplainsdem]

63. Good for them! And enjoy the babysitting! I'd love to hear what they think of the concert,

and I'm also going to be watching for fan videos that will be showing up on YouTube, probably by tonight.

[highplainsdem]

64. It's after 11 in Dusseldorf, and one video from tonight's concert is already

on YouTube.

"Unter Den Wolken" a song I posted, with the English translation of the lyrics, in the Music Appreciation group a month ago: https://democraticunderground.com/103476132

Great performance of the song at tonight's concert:

[highplainsdem]

65. Last night, for the 2nd of their two 40th-anniversary-tour concerts in Dusseldorf, DTH shared

the stage with a rival band, rivals for decades -- Die Ärzte (the Doctors).

From the German edition of Rolling Stone, the English translation via Google:

https://www-rollingstone-de.translate.goog/40-jahre-die-toten-hosen-die-aerzte-duesseldorf-video-2466913/?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

It was never thought possible that Die Toten Hosen and Die Ärzte would share the stage during their band career, let alone play each other's songs. Finally, both groups never missed an opportunity to joke about their alleged feud. Accordingly, it was always said: "Are you a Hosen or Ärzte fan?" That both bands appreciate each other very much, however, was shown by a historic moment in Düsseldorf: at the "Everything out of love - 40 years of Die Toten Hosen" tour Surprisingly, Die Ärzte also came by for a short musical interlude.

A big surprise for all viewers, who immediately filmed the spectacle: Farin Urlaub, Bela B and Rodrigo Gonzalez first played "Army of the Losers" before they declared: "Dude, 40 years, you can't be together as a band for that long". . Unless, of course, your name is Die Ärzte, because they also celebrated their 40th band anniversary in 2022.

This was followed by the Hosen song "Jürgen Engler's Party" and finally Die Ärzte played a song from their own repertoire that Die Toten Hosen have already covered: "Schrei nach Liebe". Here the Düsseldorfers stormed the stage to join the song. "Happy Birthday, old favorite enemies", the doctors wished before there was a "Blitzkrieg Bop" in double volume to hear. And Bela's last words: "We're going to get really drunk now. But not Altbier!”

If you couldn't be there - here you can see the memorable moment.

Here's the YouTube video Rolling Stone linked to:

[highplainsdem]

66. This is a fun video, which Die Toten Hosen added to their YouTube channel just this

morning, showing the band with their guests Die Ärzte and German rapper Marteria (an old friend of DTH who hadn't been mentioned by Rolling Stone's article on the concert) rehearsing before the show, along with some clips of the concert and the musicians celebrating afterward. All having a great time. Wish this video were longer than a few minutes.

[highplainsdem]

67. The band uploaded another video to YouTube this morning, showing some concert

prep and then some video of the concert in Vienna the other night. Campino doing some vocal exercises while pedaling on an exercise bike. Stretching so he can keep doing the high kicks he's known for. But he's no longer climbing high up scaffolding to perch there waving a flare, though he's still carrying a flare around the stage at times. For guys who've reached 60 or are close, they're holding up really well, though staying healthy enough for concerts obviously takes more work these days.

After the Stones and other artists have had to cancel tour appearances this summer because of Covid, I've been wondering how DTH will do, but so far everything seems fine. I did notice a member of another band onstage with them in Dusseldorf was wearing a mask offstage before the concert, but he took it off for the show.

[highplainsdem]

68. Die Toten Hosen gave a concert in Leipzig last night, and a fan was close

enough to the stage to upload fairly good video to YouTube this morning.

The band seems to be doing really well on this tour, though they're 60 or close, and this is their 40th anniversary tour. Most of the concert dates are at least a few days apart, which does give them a bit of a chance to rest, as well as travel, apparently always or almost always by bus or train, rather than flying as so many bands do touring the US.

The song below is Kamikaze, one of a few new songs done for the live acoustic album they released a few years ago. Lovely song -- see the German lyrics and English translation here: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/kamikaze-kamikaze.html-19

Official music video:

[highplainsdem]

69. Another fun video from the band, uploaded to their YouTube channel yesterday, about

their concert in Leipzig on July 9. They seem to be having just as much fun as their fans. Rocking on at 60. And I love the way Campino runs to clear the steps up to the stage as an elderly woman is helped up those steps.

[highplainsdem]

70. DTH gave a concert in Hamburg last night, at a music festival at the Volkspark Stadion.

From the videos I've seen, it looks like it was another fantastic concert.

This video is of the band performing "Steh Auf" (Stand Up). I posted video of them doing this song at a concert in Cologne last month when I posted an OP about the song in Music Appreciation -- https://democraticunderground.com/103477320 -- but the crowd then didn't do something part of the crowd did last night. Some of the fans sat down on the ground at the start of the song, then got up as well as raising their hands high (like the fans in Cologne), pogoing happily, when Campino got to the lines exhorting them to "Stand up!"

Steh auf, wenn du am Boden bist!
Steh auf, auch wenn du unten liegst!
Steh auf, es wird schon irgendwie weitergehn.

Stand up, when you're on the ground!
Stand up, even when you're down!
Stand up, it will continue somehow.

German lyrics from https://www.dietotenhosen.de/en/releases/songs/steh-auf-wenn-du-am-boden-bist . English translation courtesy of Google Translate.

[highplainsdem]

71. Live in Stuttgart last night, with a really impressive performance of

"Draußen vor der Tür," Campino's song about his father (see reply 17 above for the music video and link to the lyrics).

I hope there will be a DVD of this tour. I've seen some great performances posted by fans on YouTube.

[highplainsdem]

72. Another amusing video from the band, posted a few hours ago, showing their

side of the tour. This one is about the concert in Hamburg on the 14th.

[highplainsdem]

73. Still going really strong in Freiburg last night:

These songs were the 20th and 21st of a 32-song concert.

[highplainsdem]

74. A couple more videos, mostly backstage scenes, posted by the band about their tour.

The first is about the Stuttgart show, the second about the shows in Switzerland.

The second video shows fans -- electric fans, not just the band's music fans -- which is the first real sign I've noticed of them having some trouble coping with the heatwave in Europe.

[highplainsdem]

75. DTH are currently taking nearly a month-long break, after two months of touring,

between their concerts in Freiburg (7/23) and Mannheim (7/24) and the next concerts in Berlin (8/20) and Bremen (8/27), before this 40th anniversary tour will wrap up in Konstanz and Minden early next month.

This break was scheduled, not due to either Covid or the heat wave in Europe, though the electric fans I've seen in some videos I've run across are reminders of the heat they've been dealing with.

They have posted a couple more videos with backstage scenes as well as short concert clips on their YouTube channel in the last few days. The second one includes the fans singing "Happy Birthday" to the second member of the band, Andi (Andreas Meurer), to turn 60 during this tour.

[highplainsdem]

76. Another fun video from DTH, this one posted on their YouTube channel just minutes ago. This

has their song "Alle Sagen Das" ("They All Say That" ) -- lots of mockery of rumors and gossip -- but lots more video ciips of the band offstage and on, from various concerts on their tour. Some of the clips I recognize from earlier videos posted during the tour, but not all of them, so I want to post this. And I'll copy the song lyrics in German and English below the video.

On second thought, instead of copying all the very long lyrics (especially long with the English translation under each line in the translation, and a space after that, in what I found via Google), I'll just copy the link for the Google search that gave me the complete lyrics, in German, at the top of the results page. If you scroll down past those lyrics you'll see a "Translate to English" link right above the line identifying the lyrics source as LyricFind.com.


https://www.google.com/search?q=toten+hosen+alle+sagen+das+lyrics&ei=AofyYq3COpSw5NoPjpWlYA&ved=0ahUKEwity_Pkkrr5AhUUGFkFHY5KCQwQ4dUDCA4&uact=5&oq=toten+hosen+alle+sagen+das+lyrics&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBAgAEBMyCAgAEB4QFhATMggIABAeEBYQEzoHCAAQRxCwAzoFCCEQoAE6CAghEB4QFhAdOgYIABAeEBZKBAhBGABKBAhGGABQpxBYhCxgkDNoAXABeACAAbkBiAGKCZIBAzAuOJgBAKABAcgBAsABAQ&sclient=gws-wiz

[highplainsdem]

77. DTH's 40th anniversary tour resumed last night, at Berlin's Tempelhof airport, and

from the videos already posted online, it looks like it was another great concert:

[highplainsdem]

78. Long article/interview on Campino's environmental activism and narrator role in a new documentary

on climate change. English translation here

https://www-watson-de.translate.goog/unterhaltung/interview/277792188-hosen-saenger-campino-kritisiert-christian-lindner-scharf-nur-schwer-fassen?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

and original article here:

https://www.watson.de/unterhaltung/interview/277792188-hosen-saenger-campino-kritisiert-christian-lindner-scharf-nur-schwer-fassen


I also found an interesting article on a tweet from Campino and Die Toten Hosen on Queen Elizabeth's death, and the backlash to that from some quarters.

I'd done a google search for anything they'd said about the Queen's death. I didn't think they'd ignore it or say anything disrespectful. Campino's mother was English, he spent a lot of time visiting family in England when he was growing up, and he now has both British and German citizenship. I read somewhere, too, that he really respected the Queen, and he's never forgotten visiting one of his British relatives who lived on the coast when he was a child, and seeing the Queen's yacht. He remembers waving frantically and seeing the Queen waving back.

But not everyone liked his response to the news about her death, as this article in English explains:

https://www-hallo24-de.translate.goog/promis/die-toten-hosen-campino-queen-elizabeth-punk-fans-empoert-2626731?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

Same article in the original German:

https://www.hallo24.de/promis/die-toten-hosen-campino-queen-elizabeth-punk-fans-empoert-2626731

[highplainsdem]

79. DTH ended their very successful 40th anniversary tour in Minden last

night.

One of the covers they did was of Iggy Pop's "The Passenger." Great, great song.

And I hope this band will ride and ride and ride for more tours and albums, even though Campino has already said he doesn't think he'll be doing this in ten years. After all, Iggy's still out there touring, and he's 15 years older than Campino...

[highplainsdem]

80. I'd forgotten that Die Toten Hosen's 40th anniversary concerts would include a few in Argentina

until the video below popped up when I was checking YouTube earlier today.

This is footage from (and about) a couple of shows they did in Buenos Aires, at Estadio Obras Sanitarias, on the 21st and 22nd.

Video description the band posted, in Spanish and German, and the Google translation of the German:

¡Gracias por este gran fin de semana en Buenos Aires! Un equipo de filmación local capturó la locura de los dos días de forma genial. Próxima parada: mañana La Trastienda!

Danke für ein Hammerwochenende in Buenos Aires! Eine lokale Film-Crew hat versucht, den Wahnsinn der Tage einzufangen und man bekommt – auch wenn man des Spanischen nicht mächtig ist – einen guten Eindruck, was hier los war! Nächster Stopp: "La Trastienda"

Video by Juan Riggirozzi / Filmodromo

Thanks for a great weekend in Buenos Aires! A local film crew tried to capture the madness of the day and even if you don't speak Spanish you get a good idea of ​​what was going on here! Next stop: "La Trastienda"