16. March 2025
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Songs Of My Life: Nino De Angelo – Jenseits von Eden

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

It took me one week later than usual to give you a new edition of the Songs Of My Life. This time, the episode will be a very traditional one, first telling you the detailed story of the song and then heading towards my very personal story with that song and with that artist. I will introduce you to a German classic – so that I guess, many of my German-speaking readers know the song quite well, too. The song is called Jenseits von Eden (which literally translates to “Beyond Eden”) and the artist I am honoring in this posting is Nino de Angelo.

 

Jenseits von Eden – The Story Of The Song

I would guess that at least 70, 80 per cent of the German people know Jenseits von Eden. The song has been covered a lot of times, but very few people know that the version by Nino de Angelo was a cover as well. The song has been originally released by a project called Masquerade and was sung in English. One of the masterminds behind the track and the in-fact artist on stage was Drafi Deutscher, who was a huge artist in the German music scene (including his 1965 mega-seller Marmor, Stein und Eisen bricht), but obviously wanted to add a special performance. Guardian Angel, the original track, has been released in late 1983 and shot up to the second spot in the German and Swiss Single Charts. In Austria and Denmark, the song has even been at the top of the charts. In addition, the song made it into the Top 10 in the Netherlands, Italy and New Zealand.

And Then There was Nino de Angelo

Nino de Angelo is a German schlager artist, who was born in Karlsruhe in 1963. He had a few songs in average chart placements before, but Jenseits von Eden has definitely been de Angelo’s breakthrough. The lyrics of the German version are completely independent from the original. It in fact has a religious background and refers to the History of Creation. The songs have been released almost in parallel, which leads to the situation that both versions were in the 1984, for example.

From 2nd January to 26th February 1984, Jenseits von Eden topped the German charts (and thus was a key factor to prevent the lead for Guardian Angel). The song also lead the Austrian and Swiss charts. Despite it was a German recording, the song was Top 30 in Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands and New Zealand. It sold over half a million units in France. Nino de Angelo also released the song in English (in line with the original lyrics) and in Italian. Fun fact: the original spelling of the name of the single has been wrong – La valle del Eden. Later, they corrected it to La valle dell’Eden.

https://youtu.be/YpLzQAtJh3g

 

Many Cover Versions

There have been countless cover versions of the song. The Greek-origin artist Vicky Leandros, for example, released a Dutch and a French version in 1984. One of the most popular versions was a 2002 dance pop cover by the German project Novaspace (as Guardian Angel). You may also find versions in Polish, Spanish or Afrikaans.

 

Jenseits von Eden – My Song Of The Song

“Ich war im Pascha” (“I have been at the Pascha”). If you speak out this sentence in the Greater Cologne region, people might be looking at you in a bit of an odd way – even though I am rather sure that a lot of (male) people did that at least once in their life. The reason why this statement might lead to confusion: the Pascha used to be Europe’s largest brothel, located quite in the heart of my hometown Cologne. It does no longer hold that record for two reasons: first of all, there seems to be a massive brothel at the Spanish-French border now – and secondly, the Pascha is bankrupt due to the Covid-19 crisis.

A very special concert

At the team where men could have a physical relief for money at the huge building in Cologne, I have been there, too. Not at the numerous floors, where you can meet ladies – but in the ground floor area, where the same franchise drove a night club. Yeah, it used to be that kind of night club with pole dancing, but they also had cultural events. On 20th March 2018, Nino de Angelo gave a show there. There was a lot of coverage about that show in the media, which forced another artist, Andy Borg, to withdraw at short notice. The Pascha cut down the admission, 35 EUR incl. free drinks (!), and the show was one of the best concerts I ever had – in a very special venue.

There were male and female guests – and quite a lot of the ladies even stayed when the other ladies hit the stage after the concert. I was leaving quite “early” (the show ended at some 22:40 hrs), but it was an amazing time. Nino de Angelo gained a lot of sympathy, not just from my side, at this very special event. He is an amazing artist with a great, very close contact with the audience. And if the nightclub wasn’t closed now, I would definitely recommend to see more shows there. I am glad that I could review his latest album, Gesegnet und Verflucht, just a few weeks ago.

 

Jenseits von Eden – Spotify and Lyrics

Here is Jenseits von Eden on Spotify:

Some (external) lyrics links:

 

Songs Of My Life Playlist

I created a playlist with all the Songs Of My Life songs so far. It will be updated with very new episode:

 

Title picture: original single cover, artist material

 

Postings about Concerts

All postings about concerts I visited:

 

All “classic” blog posts

No reviews – just debating and certain topics – these are my “traditional” blog posts in the categories Just blogging, Just blogging on music and Sports Blogging:

 

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