Terrifying German Culture Hou- wat?
There’ve been a few „this was terrifying, why?!“ comments in the side channels to the last blogpost. Let me explain a bit, why Terrifying German Culture Hour exists:
I’m a nerd. And so is the girlfriend. Being nerds, our interests are often… eclectic. And cynical — as anyone who ever worked with computers, we sometimes want to retire to a farm, so, when the conversation shown at the left side happened, there was only one possible answer:
One-up her and assert dominance! So, I posted this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c1hhWhhTbA
Which is, despite what you might think, actually sung in german. And as I did that on her Facebook timeline, innocent bystanders got blindsided, and demanded an explanation. I finally found the relevant Facebook post again, so I can make you suffer reconstruct this explanation here:
Have you seen „A most wanted Man“? You should, it’s a great movie. If you’ve seen it, there’s a german bureaucrat in there, who is played by Herbert Grönemeyer. You can briefly see him in this YouTube clip. He’s the chap on the left:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI4f8wqy-vA&feature=youtu.be&t=29
Kinda unimpressive, right? But the fact that the video headline mentions his name and the word „comeback“ should tell you that he might be a bit of a thing here. And yes, he is. Maybe you do remember Das Boot? He was in there too, as a reminder, here he is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8Z763gIE7k&feature=youtu.be&t=108
So. Grönemeyer, actor, that’s it, right?
OF COURSE NOT!
Grönemeyer is a german national treasure, and not because of his acting (which is top notch), but for his music, dummy! Us germans, we love Herbert for his music, here’s his hit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IZsxfo8ITw
And no, this is not something weird and one-hit wonder by some random actor-trying-musician. Herbert fills stadiums!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpGIDOBZqgM
And he stayed active as a musician quite a while, making videos that put Werner Herzog to shame:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SG5A3PYaUs
If there is any doubt in your mind, he is so beloved, he got to sing the official soccer world cup song!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrdaErlKngs
Should you still be unconvinced, rest assured, he is so famous, there are cover songs of his work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfhmKZsQvSY
And next time, I’ll do the Die Ärzte thing, promise.