Other titles made fun of typical German things, like “ Ein Antrag auf Erteilung eines Antragformulars”, which can be translated as “Application for granting an application for a permit”. Reinhard Mey started his career with funny, satirical songs like “Die heiße Schlacht am kalten Buffet” (The hot fight at the cold buffet), where he describes the eating habits of a certain kind of people, where the buffett-veterans have “scars on hand and face wherever the fork hits” and where the last line is that 10% of the proceedings go to “Bread for the World”.īut at first it looked like Reinhard Mey would end as a pub singer, until the song “Der Mörder ist immer der Gärtner” made him famous, and the title line “The murderer is always the Gardener” entered German as a winged word. Generally a Liedermacher writes lyrics that are very personal and often political. But there are some songs even I come back to again and again and, as for some of Mey’s songs, cry again and again.
It feels like an honorary title, a knight of songs, and Reinhard Mey might well be the reason for this feeling.ĬC-by-sa Sven-Sebastian Sajak / Wikimedia
I like the difference to the English term, because the Liedermacher – at least that is my feeling – is more than just someone who writes songs. In German a Liedermacher is someone who makes (machen) his own songs (Lieder) and of course sings them, generally alone with his instrument only. I will try something tricky today: Talk in English about a German “Liedermacher” (singer-songwriter): Reinhard Mey and his German song texts.
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