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Andreas Dorau – My Most Favorite Songs and Lines

Florian Buechting Just Blogging, Just Blogging on music No Comments

Andreas Dorau is one of the artists I follow for the longest time in my life. In 1997, just when I finished German high school, he released his album 70 Minuten Musik ungeklärter Herkunft, While the album title promised “70 minutes of music of uncertain origin”, it was in fact just some 53 minutes long – but still changed my life. Even nowadays, I love listening to the thirteen songs. As Andreas will be releasing a new album (Im Gebüsch – meaning “In the Bushes”) next week, I felt to share a post with you I wanted to do since quite a long time anyway. Here is the dozen of my favorite song of the German electronic pop artist.

As some of his lyrics have a beautiful sense of describing facts (with a bit of irony), I will here and there give you my favorite quotes of Andreas Dorau.

 

My Favorite Andreas Dorau Songs of All Times

Here are my twelve favorite songs of Andreas Dorau so far. I excluded any song which is part of the 2024 Im Gebüsch album. Especially Auf der Weidenallee would definitely have made it.

 

12th: Demokratie

I kick off my dozen of songs with the title track of his 1988 album Demokratie (which, not too surprisingly, translates to democracy…). The song is praising, but also struggling with political structures and thus feels surprisingly modern.

Favorite Quote:
This quote is right from the beginning of the song. It is already quite illustrative for listing positive and negative points about the political system:

Demokratie
Hat viele Gesichter
Mal ist sie Schlichter
Dann demonstriert sie
(“Democracy
Has many faces
Sometimes, it is more simple
Then, it is demonstrating”)

 

11th: Nein!

Nein! (“No!”) is a track from one of the most special albums by Andreas, Das Wesentliche (“The Essential”). The 2019 release is not a best of or similar kind of compilations, but the songs don’t have stanzas and concentrate on the chorus. I still remember when a photographer was kicked out of a Cologne concert of the tour in line with the typical Three Songs, No Flash rule. Without any prior notice, he did not have more than a few minutes to take shots.

Favorite Quote:
The song is overall having a bit of a melancholic mood. As it is only coming with a chorus and its variations, the lyrics are rather short and I just quote the two first lines of the chorus (and the song):

Nein ist ein trauriges Wort
Fast wie ein Schlussakkord
(“No is a sad word
Just like a final chord”)

 

10th: Das Mädchen auf dem Foto

As said in the introduction, 70 Minuten Musik ungeklärter Herkunft is one of the most influential music albums of my life. I would not be too wrong if I put five or six tracks of this 1997 album only into my Top 12 list. However, I tried to reduce it. This twelfth song of the album is rather an “insider track”, describing falling in love to a girl… Which is on a fashion / hairstyle photo in the window of a hairdressing salon.

Favorite Quote:

Ihr Haar ist modisch schlau geschnitten
Ach, was habe ich wegen ihr gelitten
Doch sie schaut nur immer ins leere
Als wenn ich da nicht da wäre
(“Her hair is cut in a fashionable smart way
Gee, I have sufferd due to her.
But she is gazing into space
Just as I wasn’t there”)

 

9th: Im September

Even though the song is for whatever reason also given as a 2022 single release at Spotify, it is in fact the opening track of Andreas Dorau’s 2005 album, Ich bin der eine von uns beiden. I like the vibes of this track and single release, which even has a nice touch of funk.

Favorite Quote:
The song is about a happy summer love. However, love is fading more and more.

Er fragte ob das Glück zerbricht
Sie meinte nur: ich weiss es nicht
Eine Tür ging auf
Und das Unglück nahm seinen Lauf
(“He asked whether luck is breaking
She just stated: I don’t know
A door opened
And faith took its course”)

 

8th: Hühnerposten

If you would translate Hühnerposten literally, you would result in something like “Chicken Post”. However, the opening track oif the 2014 album Aus der Bibliotheque (a bit of French-alike written “From the Library”) is referring to a rather short street in Hamburg. The former main postal office building is nowadays hosting the Central Library – and that’s exactly where Dorau is taking us to. A very happy and easy song with a beautiful melody.

Favorite Quote:

Am Automaten neben der Drehtür
Zahlt man die Versäumnisgebühr
Das ist jeder mal ein großer Mist
Wenn die Leihfrist überschritten ist
(“At the machine next to the turning door
You pay the overdue fine
This is always a big mess
When the leding period has exceeded”)

 

7th: Kein Liebeslied

“This is no love song, because that’s would not be my expert topic” is the key phrase of this song, Even though the Ich bin der eine von uns beiden 2005 album is not my favorite one, it comes with two songs in this list. The song is claiming for a wider variety of topics in music.

Favorite Quote:

Alte und Kinder das sind doch mal Themen
Die sollte man auch mal in Liedern erwähnen
Auch Tiere und Pflanzen wie sie leiden und so
Sorgen in jedem Lied für Niveau
(“Elder people and kids would be topics
Which you also should mention in songs
Animals and plants, how they suffer and so
Create a certain standard in every song”)

 

6th: Ossi mit Schwan

The song taken from the 2017 album Die Liebe und der Ärger der Anderen (“Love and the Struggle of the Others”) feels hilarious. However, the song is in fact based on a real story. In Munich, locals were abusing a visitor from the wider Berlin region – by hitting them with a wild swan they caught in the nearby river. I feel that Andreas put that story into a song in a fantastic manner.

Favorite Quote:

Die Schurken kamen vor’s Amtsgericht
Denn so behandelt man doch Schwäne nicht
Und ist ein Akzent auch schwer zu ertragen
Gehört es sich nicht mit Schwänen zu schlagen
(“The villains were brought to district court
Because that’s not the way you treat swans.
and even if a dialect is hard to bear
It is not correct to hit with swans.”)

 

5th: Stoned Faces Don’t Lie

Stones Faces Don’t Lie was one of two key songs of the 1994 album Neu! (“New”). While the other famous track, Das Telefon sagt Du (maybe you read something about it below), you don’t have the 1994 versions of the songs on streaming platforms – and typical listen to the Ata Tak version. The topic of the song is… You can guess it.

Favorite Quote:

Er stand an der Straße und sagte zu mir:
Willst du mal rauchen? Ich rauchte für vier
(“He stood on the street and asked me
Do you want to smoke? I smoked for four”)

 

4th: So ist das nun mal

So ist das nun mal has been one of the core tracks of the 70 Minuten Musik album. The song also got some presence in German and European music television at the time of release. The song is quite in line with several of the really big hits by Andreas in the 1990’s – a happy sound which somehow still reminds of the Neue Deutsche Welle pop and wave sound of the earlier 1980’s. The song is thereby also criticizing that popular music is getting more and more similar. Love it!

Favorite Quote:
The female vocals on So ist das nun mal are in English, I thus don’t have to translate it this time:

The record keeps spinning, maybe round and round,don’t you know, this is the same old sound, again.

 

3rd: Das Telefon sagt Du (Video Version)

After his 1980’s releases, the 1994 Das Telefon sagt Du has been the second big single release of the Neu! album. The message is hilarious: A person is lifting the phone, listening to the dial tone and feels that Das Telefon sagt Du – “The phone is saying ‘You'” (would work out in English as well…).

Favorite Quote:
My quote here is relatively long – but it simply is so nicely illustrating the beauty of the lyrics of this song:

Ich denk nicht immer nur an mich
Sondern gerne auch an Dich
Ich nehm den Hörer und frag schlau
Wer gefällt heut jeder Frau?
Dieses wunderschöne Uuuh
Was für mich klingt wie nur Du
Ich heb ab und bin ganz still
Weil ich’s nochmal hören will
(“I don’t think about myself all the time,
But also like to think about you
I lift the receiver and smartly ask
Who is liked today by every lady?
This beautifuluh
Which sounds to me like “Just You”
I lift it and am very quiet
AS I love to hear it again”)

 

2nd: Flaschenpfand

Aus der Bibliotheque is my favorite Andreas Dorau album release of the 2010’s decade. The album contains several really cool and well–told stories, some of them are really hilarious. Flaschenpfand is dealing with the German (bottle/drink) deposit system. The line 8, 15, 25 Cent teases the typical deposit amounts for reusable and one-time drink containers. It also describes scenes at the typical deposit return machines. Great lyrics, lovely melody – and somehow a track really everybody can relate to – a typical Dorau!

Favorite Quote:
The biggest catch of the song is the chorus, so I went for it in here:

8, 15, 25 Cent,
Ein jeder diese Zahlen kennt.
Die Kinder rufen im ganzen Land,
Fli-Fli-Fla-Fla-Flaschenpfand!
“8, 15, 25 cent
Everybody knows these numbers
The kids are yelling out throughout the country
Bi-bi-Bo-Bo-bottle deposit”

 

My Favorite Andreas Dorau Song:
Girls In Love

Okay, this one is not too surprising. I already made a Songs of my Life entry about the song taken from the 70 Minuten Musik album. The song is also Andreas’ biggest post-1980’s success, a remix made it into the Top 10 of France (where his style has been much more fitting to the music taste of his time…).

Favorite Quote:
The song is rather dramatic – the female protagonist is hanging herself due to lovesickness. The lyrics state

Als der Boy dies erfuhr
Holte er sie von der Schnur

(“When the boy heard about it
He took her from the string”)

 

 

Title picture / social media picture by Sönke Held, received as part of the press kit for the Im Gebüsch album.

 

My Favorite Andreas Dorau Songs Playlist

On top of the twelve songs mentioned above, I gave you 20 more songs (more or less sorted by original album) in this playlist. Maybe you would favor another one?

 

Andreas Dorau

Here are all postings related to German pop icon Andreas Dorau:

 

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