23. January 2025
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Songs Of My Life: PUR – Wenn sie diesen Tango hört

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

In my Songs of my Life postings, I love to share songs with you, which you might not have in focus that much. German tracks are very typical for that category. They speak the language of my heart, the language I feel and think in. One of these tracks I would love to share with you is Wenn sie diesen Tango hört by the German pop–rock band Pur. The title literally translates to “When she is listening to that tango song”. Hope you enjoy this episode of my personal thoughts about a song, which is really special to me.

 

Wenn sie diesen Tango hört – The Story of The Song

Pur has almost written half a century of German pop music history. Roland Bless and Ingo Reidl met in 1975 in Bietigheim North of Stuttgart and founded the band Crusade. In 1980, the band renamed to Opus and five years thereafter to the today’s band name Pur. Four Pur members are part of the band since the Crusade and Opus times already. Apart from Reidl, they are namely Joe Crawford (bass, choir), Rudi Buttas (guitar) and especially singer Hartmut Engler, who joined Crusade in 1976. However, the first decade of Pur was rather slow. Despite the band won a national contest for rock bands in 1986, they hadn’t signed a record deal yet. This happened in 1987.

On 1st June 1988, the band released the album Wie im Film. It was the second long-play emerging from that record deal. From a nowadays perspective, it was the band’s last album, which did not make it into the German charts. However, the album contained songs, which had a lot of popularity among the growing Pur community. Especially Funkelperlenaugen, the first single release of the album (April 1988) is still nowadays one of the key songs of the band from Southern Germany. In October 1989, more than a year after the Wie im Flm release, the band released the second song of the album, Wenn sie diesen Tango hört, as the last single release of that record. As all singles before, the song has not been a chart success at its time.

 

A Special, Social-Critic Track

One reason why Pur had a rather lame claim to fame are their social-critic lyrics. For example, after winning the national rock contest, their songs prevented a duel with the G.D.R. winner of the same year, the Puhdys. The story of Wenn sie diesen Tango hört is in line with their typical songbook. A 61-year old grandma is sitting on her sofa, celebrating her birthday. There is nothing but a brief greeting cards from her children and grandchildren. Her husband has died already, so that she feels lonely very frequently. However, she gets around most of the time.

Und manchmal, wenn’s zu sehr weh tut
Legt sie ihre alte Lieblingsplatte auf
Und tanzt ganz für sich

(“And sometimes, when it hurt too much
She is changing to her old, favorite record
And dances, just by herself”)

The chorus changes to tango rhythm. Wenn sie diesen Tango hört, vergisst sie die Zeit (“When she is listening to this tango, she is forgetting time”). The song is finally a musical reminder not to forget your family and leave your beloved ones behind. The song has become one of the fans’ favorite in the upcoming tour. Finally,

Wie im Film was the last step for Pur to boost their career.Their 1990 album Unendlich mehr reiceived a golden record in Germany. Two albums later, the the 1993 Seiltänzertraum, the band boosted their popularity in German speaking countries. In Germany only, the album received triple platinum status. Between 1995 and 2009, Pur released six albums in a row, which topped the German album charts and at least received a double golden record. More than that, the band has been one of the best-selling live bands since the early 1990’s. Two of their 1990’s live albums received platinum status. Until today, their concerts typically take place in Germany’s largest indoor arenas and stadiums and sell out.

 

Wenn sie diesen Tango hört – My Story of The Song

My cousin attracted me to Pur in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s. I especially loved the Pur albums of that era and still own a large collection of their records. During that time, I also started visiting Pur concerts. My most favorite song of the band was – and (obviously) still is Wenn sie diesen Tango hört. During the 1990’s, I have visited a double-digit number of Pur shows. However, in the later years of this decade, I also broke with the band. One reason was that I felt that they lost their style and also did very commercial music like the 1998 Endlich ich, which was used for beer marketing in Germany. The key reason was that the band dropped the song from their set list. I simply could not deal with that. (Nowadays, however, they seem t play it again. Especially a collaboration with German Daniel Wirtz is very popular).

However, this Song of my Life episode does come with a happy end. In 2023, Hartmut Engler and others wrote the musical Abenteuerland, named their 1995 triple platinum album. When I saw that Wenn sie diesen Tango hört is part of the musical’s song list. I just had to see it again. I felt that the musical was a bit of thin in the first act and a bit of abitioned i the second one. But it features a lot of their best songs of their golden era in the 1980’s and 1990’s. On 10th April 2024, I sat in the first row of Capitol Theater in Düsseldorf and was able to see the song live on stage again. Not with Hartmut Engler and the Pur band, but in a really nice version, some 25 years after I had seen it live on stage the last time. It was the most (personally) touching moment of the musical to me.

I will likely come back to Abenteuerland in Dusseldorf this season. Some befriended actors of the Rock of Ages German tour are on stage there nowadays. They won’t play the characters which perform my personal Pur favorite, but they are an additional reason to enjoy a wonderful night with this magical 1988 write.

 

Wenn sie diesen Tango hört – Spotify and Lyrics

Here is original version of the song (2002 remastered) on Spotify:

This website features the German lyrics of Wenn sie diesen Tango hört.

 

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:

 

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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