20. February 2025
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Songs Of My Life: Doro – The Fortuneteller

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

Very often, a song I feature as a Song Of My Life is also a track which made me listen to a certain artist. If that would be the criteria which track is a Song Of My Life by Doro (or: Doro Pesch), then it would be her amazing ballad Love Me In Black. I still love both tracks, even though they are quite different. But the most wonderful and special song of the “Metal Queen”‘s stock of songs is definitely The Fortuneteller to me.

 

The Fortuneteller – The Story of The Song

The Fortuneteller is the third and the longest song of Doro Pesch’s third solo album, True At Heart (1991). After Doro and Warlock had split in 1989, the critics stuggled a bit their first solo albums. However, the domestic metal scene still loved the German metal queen and both, her solo debut Force Majeure (1989) and the sophomore one Doro (1990) sold well and made it to the German Top 10 album. True at Heart just made it to the Top 20 and did not have too many songs, which are nowadays still popping up in concerts. The core song of the album likely was the ballad Fall for Me Again and the feature single Cool Love.

A Fan Favorite Song

The Fortuneteller became a fan favorite and a frequent song in the Doro shows of the 1990’s. The song has been written by Doro and Gary Scruggs, a Nashville guitarist and songwriter. The song is rather untypical for Doro. The song is coming with a mysterious atmosphere describing how a lady is visiting a gypsy fortuneteller. She is struggling with her life and needs advice.

Yeah I do… thinking of that man…
Is he alone? Is he thinking of me?
Does he still love me?
I needed some answers – deep answers

The fortuneteller is reading from the cards and reads her palm as well. The result is the same, as stated in the melodic chorus:

I can see that you don’t really want to know
What your future holds, as you travel down the road:
You’d rather believe that dreams do come true,
Than to find out they can lie to you

The song is not at all lacking a certain sense of irony and also deals with predjudice. The reason why the song became that popular in live shows was the stage peforrmance. Typically, a member of the Doro crew played the fortuneteller role on stage. However, they rather used a crystal ball in these performances.

 

Doro Today

Doro Pesch, the 3rd June 1964 metal queen from Dusseldorf, Germany, is still active. This year, Doro is celebrating being on stage for 40 years. In late October, she will release her fourteenth solo studio album Conqueress – Forever Strong and Proud. The same weekend, she will play the anniversary show in her home town. Unfortunately, I won’t make it to that one (I am in Pittsburgh that day). I am sure it will be a blast. Grammy winning songwriter Gary Scruggs, by the way, died in December 2021 at the age of 72. He is rather well-known for country and bluegrass songs. But you should also praise him for The Fortuneteller.

 

The Fortuneteller – My Story of The Song

As said above, The Fortuneteller is not the first song I really loved from Doro. I rather got into her music a bit later, with the 1993 Angels Never Die and the 1998 Love Me in Black album, one of my favorite albums of all times (even though the sale was not that good). However, in these days, I also watched quite a bunch of Doro shows and have been a member of her fan club (I hereby apologize that one year I forgot to pay the membership fee and never re-joined again later).

Around the mid-2000’s, I went to her show less frequently. Nonetheless, I love the music of Doro and typically make one or two shows every second tour or so. The Fortuneteller is not part of nowadays shows any more – there is just too much additional material. But I still love to remember this unique song of her discography. I would love to see it live one more time – let’s see if I got the luck to do so.

One of Germany’s finest musicians

During all these years, I have been gifted to meet Doro a few times. The last time has been at the opening night show of Rock of Ages at Deutsches Theater Munich. That’s already some 25 years since I met her the very first time (a signed and dedicated poster in my flat is still telling from that one…). I have to say that Doro is one of the most wonderful, open-minded and most straight persons I have ever met in music business. Definitely, she is one of the most iconic German musicians as well. I am glad that her music has been a part of my life and will ever be. Thus, The Fortuneteller is truly a Song of My Life.

 

Title picture: Doro – True at Heart album cover

 

The Fortuneteller – Spotify and Lyrics

Here is The Fortuneteller on Spotify:

The lyrics to the song can be found here.

 

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:

 

 

Songs Of My Life

Here are the postings of the personal Songs Of My Life category:

 

Hard Rock and Metal Reviews in 2023

Here are all my Media Reviews related to hard rock and metal published in 2023:

 

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