König von Deutschland
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"König von Deutschland", in English "King of Germany", is a famous song by Rio Reiser. It was written in 1975 while Rio was a band member of Ton Steine Scherben. The song was only published as early as 1986 on the album Rio I.. However it was played before that already, in fact the song was heard at concerts of Ton Steine Scheiben since atleast 1976. Rio Reiser himself is sometimes nicknamed 'King of Germany' because of this song.
The song was later published again with a modified song text. König von Deutschland (Best of) is also the name of his best-of album of 1994.
There exists a number of cover versions of that song, among them are well-known songs from Bela B. (Die Ärzte), and Wizo.
[edit] Song text
Today the song text is part of the traditional culture of Germany. Even decades after its publication, the song text happens to be known by almost every German. It does not matter whether the song text is modified - in fact one can find an intention for modification so that the song text does better match with a current political situation. (Ton Steine Scherben was punk band with radical political songs - after its dissolution (i.e. break-up) Rio made a number of sarcastic (i.e. biting-funny) pop songs that made fun of the situation).
| song text | translates |
|---|---|
| Jede Nacht um halb drei, wenn das Fernseh'n rauscht | Every night at three, when the TV greys out |
| leg ich mich ins Bett, und mal mir aus | I lay in my bed, and imagine myself |
| wie es wäre, wenn ich nicht mehr wäre wer ich bin | how it would be, if it would not be me |
| sondern Kanzler, Kaiser, König oder Königin | but be the chancellor, caesar, king or queen |
| (Aufzählung, was man Abstruses machen würde) | (A number of really useless funny things to do) |
| das alles, und noch vielmehr | all that, and a lot more |
| würd' ich machen, wenn ich König von Deutschland wär | I would do, if I were king of Germany. |
