Someone is gone, but some of it is still there: this is The basic motive of some beautiful Songs by Reinhard Mey. There may be bubbles, for example, a tube for soap: “you gave it to me sometime for the hell of it. / Now, I’m a fool that I am / And blow in the open Windows / soap bubbles in front of me.“
Jan Wiele
editor in the features section.
F. A. Z.
The 1971. It sounded like young love, and the speech was in the song “a crack in my mind”, that crack in it, which is probably always necessary in order to make love to a song. More than fifty years have passed. It Knackse have been added. Love is grown old, but still strong, like before a year and a day. “On clear days I can see up to happiness. I just need to go a little to the side.“ The singing, looks back on the landscape of his life: “Nothing is hidden, nothing is sugarcoated, no statements, all reconciled.” Really happy, who can say – “What do I want more”. is the song It sounds to fulfillment. But it has a barb: The chord progression under the chorus is in a minor key. Any “more” there must be still to want. “I want to say on a clear day / In the Golden rooster is still a feast / With wine and feast, and play of the strings / And mother: Young, don’t drink so much!” As you can tell with Compton Mackenzie just: “Oh doctor, what a wonderful dream.”
The magic word of the late work
But that’s not all. Oliver Twist has asked for more. And: “Want to ship life, fragile in your arms, sink down / be a king in Thule embers drink The Cup empty,’n when the night falls, / In harmony with yourself and with God and the world.” This Reinhard Mey has pronounced the magic word of the late work: dawn. My colleagues Dylan and Cohen say Hello, a lot of mythology attached to this dusk, and the long historical preparation for it. So also in the case of Mey: He wanted to sing on his first German-language Studio album, “Orpheus”, sees itself now as a king in Thule. So as the king from Goethe’s ballad, which his beloved has nothing to leave as a Golden Cup. “The eyes went to him about / as often As he drank out of it”, says Goethe. And that is exactly the right image, in which all of the songs found on Meys now published in the late work of the Album together. From the soap bubbles in the tubes of the Golden Cup of remembrance has become. And whenever he drinks, go over to the singer’s eyes, then the mouth.
“The house at the traffic lights” is the name of this recently released Album. This is a nice, simple title. He has a very specific reference to Meys parents house in Berlin-Reinickendorf, but it also sounds kind of mythological. If the real traffic light is on Red and the cars behind the singer, honk, the reminder light turns to green. There is a glass powder of coffee on the kitchen table, “with immersion heaters, low-tech”. Mother drinks this Cup of coffee, the father turns on the tube radio and “conducts his Mozart”. In front of the house on the swing of the brother of Fred: dreams of flying.
