Information
Date: 2001
Title: Mother's longing for the pain of heart
Source: Metal Hammer (Polish Version)
Translator: Thanks to Devlyn for the translation from Polish
Press Article
Heavy Metal as a music exists for almost thirty years. And always, at least I think so, always the music itself, the composition was the most important in it. The lyrics of the song, if there were any, appeared to be less important. Only when you can listen better to what the heavy metal bands sing, you find out that they don't sing about happy or funny things (well, maybe except the American bands...).
The first heavy metal bands didn't have an easy life when it came to lyrics. When the first Black Sabbath album appeared on the market and it was entitled just "Black Sabbath", the thunders fell on the band. Everyone was looking for Satanists, propagating evil in the world, within the band. And all because of innocently sounding lyrics for the main track. Musicians from Led Zeppelin had similar problems. They even went one step further. The guitarist Jimmy Page bought a house previously belonging to the famous occultist Aleister Crowley and started to gather souvenirs connected with this dark figure. So heavy metal lyrics started to change and modify. But as it turned out the beginning of the 90's let loose a bit the morality of people, and the scenes that before could be seen only in horror movies now appeared in the TV news. And finally no one was surprised that good things are neighboring the evil ones....
Those things were touched by Rammstein in their lyrics. But the first thing that shocks in their songs is not that Rammstein sings about dark sides of human life, but the fact that they sing in German. Till now, three albums of this really interesting band were released. But this time it would be worthy to concentrate more about their lyrics than their music.
On the first album entitled "Herzeleid" (German: pain of heart) the lyrics are mostly about love. However, not about the beautiful side of love, singing birds, sunny day, but about the dark side of love. Already in the first song you can hear that "sex is battle, love is a war". And in the song "Weisses Fleisch" (Ger.: white flesh) we can hear that love doesn't bring only wonderful delight but also pain and tears. And that wonderful feeling of love can also turn to hatred we can find out from "Asche Zu Asche" (Ger.: ashes to ashes). We can read there that hot desire can be easily transformed to hatred caused by rejection, that will in turn cause revenge of a left lover. "Secretly I will rise from the dead and you will beg for mercy", infidel lovers are warned by the author of the lyrics. Love can also lead to a crime, we can get to know this from the lyrics of "Du Riechst So Gut" (Ger.: you smell so wonderful). But in spite of those horrible predictions the album contains also good advice. The main track advises that one should "protect oneself from the pain of heart, because there isn't much time when you are together" and because of that one should "protect oneself from the solitude." So anyway not everything is so bad about this love.
The second album of the band entitled "Sehnsucht" (Ger.: longing) continues the theme started on the first CD. Already the first, title-track has such lyrics that if it was understood by everyone and not only German-speaking fans it would be doomed for censorship. As doesn't the text about "being between your long legs" fall under censorship? Some people would be left with their eyes glaring but the others would condemn the band, wouldn't they? Also in the song "Kuess Mich" (Ger.: kiss me) some univocally erotic (at least for some people) lyrics appear. Because how you can differently understand the words: "she recoils from lust, begging a man with a tongue"? Again the incestuous motive appears, this time in the song "Spiel Mit Mir" (Ger.: play with me). On this album also some kind of philosophical subject was touched. In "Engel" (Ger.: angel) the band asks about the sense of telling people stories about the existence of angels, who are anyway just like people - alone and afraid.
The third album is entitled "Mutter" (Ger.: mother) and at least the title itself seems to announce some kind of more optimistic view on life, than on the previous CD's. Already the first lyrics "Mein Herz Brennt" (Ger.: my heart burns) is more positive. We can find out from it that always there is someone somewhere who will be able soothe us and bring sleep on our eyes in spite of our fear. Anyway the whole album is marked by a bit of warmth, and that is mainly through lyrics. Maybe the author of Rammstein's lyrics got bored with singing only about gloomy things, as this time he devoted most of the lyrics to the title-mother or parents in general. Certainly "Ich Will" (Ger.: I want) speaks about this topic. Mother is even sometimes compared to the sun, that enlightens human life. That metaphor appears in the title-track "Mutter:" "I would like to have a mother, no sun shines for me". But Rammstein wouldn't be Rammstein if they didn't include any sexually marked lyrics on their album. This time it appears in the track with a title that tells you everything "Zwitter" (Ger.: hermaphrodite): "I am the a beautiful bisexual, two souls in my chest, two sexes, one lust". But this text can be also read as a warning against too great self-adoration: "Hermaphrodite, hermaphrodite, I am so in love with myself". The album ends though with a very strong anti-religious mark. In the song "Hallelujah" there appears a hidden allusion to infamous deeds of priests: "He never had a wife, so he has to love his neighbor".
In spite of decision to propagate their own language, Rammstein has one track in their discography that is sung in English. It is entitled "Stripped", and as you probably guessed, it also touches the erotic theme. It is enough to quote chorus: "Let me see you stripped".*
So we can see that the lyrics of the heavy metal band don't have to tell concern only horrible things, but can also tell about some very pleasant ones. It is a pity that not all bands create things like these....
* Stripped is a cover of a Depeche Mode song, the lyrics are not Rammstein's.