This series of short articles about night life, bars and music in Berlin by the irrepressible and ever curious Ms Cindy Su is copyrighted to its owner OTA-Berlin GmbH.
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Ten Great Songs About Berlin
If you love Berlin and you love music, then there is a not insubstantial chance you could find yourself canonizing songs about Berlin. Berlin, for its part, has inspired countless songs over the years – earlier in the form of ballads and later in the form or rock, pop, dance or rock.
This is a list of some of the highlights including internationally famous artists and some known to only a small Berlin crowd, in the order of which they appeared.
Marlene Dittrich – Ich hab noch einen Koffer in Berlin
A famous, jazzy, oldie, for those who appreciate the classics marks one of the most important early songs about Berlin.
Alphaville – Summer in Berlin (1984)
This is the perfect song with which to romanticize Berlin. It was written before the wall fell, so the haunted mentions of it lend a peculiar grace to the soft, idyllic sounds. This song might single-handedly make you want to spend the rest of your life in summer in Berlin – so beware.
Peter Schilling – City Of Night (1989)
This is a fascinating song for history buffs, relating the tale of the time in which Berlin was still divided. It also happens to be extremely melodic. It is not to be missed if you love Berlin and its divided to united past.
Ramones – Born to die in Berlin (1995)
The Ramones live on in Berlin in their own cosy Mitte museum, likely in part because they once asked themselves if ‘well maybe they were born to die in Berlin.’ Listen to them growl away their love for Berlin in this song in the museum’s cafe, or on the way.
Lexy & K-Paul – Der Fernsehturm (2002)
Leave it to the famous DJ duo to dedicate something truly bizarre to Berlin and its guardian TV Tower. According to the lyrics you had better watch out, for the TV Tower ‘has ears’ and ‘nothing gets past it.’ Kind of spooky when you consider that it is visible (and audible?) in Berlin’s center in every direction, no?
Kaiserbase – Berlin, du bist so wunderbar (2003)
If you’ve ever wanted to express your delight in Berlin in German, take a line from Kaiserbase telling Berlin how wunderfull it is. This song was extremely popular a few years back and virtually every relatively young Berliner knows and loves it.
The 69 Eyes – Feel Berlin (2005)
A great English rock song that one couple perhaps hear today in Magnet Club or Lido with some luck.
Infernal – From Paris to Berlin (2007)
Infernal makes modern Eurodance and several of their songs could be dedicated to Berlin, although this is the only one that names it. You won’t actually hear this in discos in Berlin, but songs about the discos in Berlin are what you want to listen to before you go to the disco anyway, not in the disco.
Trikot – Wasser aus der Spree (2008)
This laidback catchy pop song salutes the river of Berlin, the Spree. Boston has a song dedicated to its dirty water – the Charles River, why not Berlin, whose river is ostensibly just as dirty?
‘I can’t live with the dirt but I can’t live without’ laments Peter Fox in this Berlin classic rap song meaning ‘city ape.’ It’s great fun if you appreciate parties, and even a source of inspiration to go out at night when you aren’t in the mood, to ‘celebrate without a reason,’ because, ‘apes party even when they’re sad.’ You heard it from Peter Fox first.
Links Included:
Marlene Dittrich – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-BLoI-0aFc
Alphaville – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qST8SR8LE
Peter Schilling – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15WQBB7Npqw
Ramones – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXG-zxsE1qA
Lexy & K-Paul http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_Fernsehturm
Kaiserbase – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uga_sPZRF70
The 69 Eyes – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvbzI-ZVe2M
Infernal – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THt5u-i2d9k
Trikot – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD4QpGjO0Hc
Peter Fox – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8mrkoFU88I
- Ms Cindy Su – OTA-Berlin Constituency Blog
Ten Great Songs About Berlin – and not by ‘Irving Berlin’ ! from OTA Berlin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Germany License. If you use this article or parts of it, please refer to http://www.ota-berlin.de.
Tags: irving berlin, Ms Cindy Su, ota-berlin, songs about berlin
Hi,
I’d like to make one small correction to the list: 69eyes is a Finnish band.