Episode 262
Recently I had back. Actually, I always have a back now – I am a back now. One
result of profuse writing. As the German hobby humorist likes to say: Be careful when choosing a career!
Although I probably would have gotten backs in the context of any other trade. In any case, I had a particularly strong back recently. Like a 160-year-old, I dragged myself through the days, twisted in a bad way, and whenever I met myself in the mirror, I looked like a particularly failed sculpture by an outsider art sculptor.
I acted like any sane person in such a situation: instead of practicing muscle building and back formation, I sought solace in pop music. There are songs about everything, so there must be songs about back pain. And if Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” can get you through days of sadness, by my logic, there must be songs that carry the listener piggyback through the world when the sacroiliac joint twirls. But the situation is sadder than a long morning in an orthopedist’s waiting room: The first piece I came across in my research is entitled “I have sciatica”. It is a “gag song” by a certain Sebastian Müller, a radio comedian or something similar. As is so often the case when a “gag” is made in Germany, relief is not to be expected: After hearing the piece, one has even more sciatica.
The next song displayed – “Song from the back that makes me weak”, a semi-professional release by a certain Wolfgang Paul – was not able to counteract the pain. Anyone who hoped that at least international pop music would set significant accents in the sector of the back song would be disappointed: here and there a “bad back” is mentioned; But that was about it.
With a lot of goodwill, The Rolling Stones’ “Beast Of Burden” can be read as an example of back rock – but it could also be about anything else. In 1974, Carly Simon released the song Haven’t Got Time For The Pain. Their lyrics are not related to muscle pain or anything like that, but they were used in the late 80s in the USA as a promotional song for the painkiller Medipren.
It’s probably just that there’s no glamor inherent in the subject of backs, unlike, for example, singing about mental pain. Understandably, songs about sciatica or lumbago cause little cork popping in the festival pit. And since the old ones mostly act as if they were just the older boys, the potentially identifying subject doesn’t really come into play with boomer stars either.
Speaking of which, the only rock stars on record with any bones or brawn are the unfortunate Phil Collins and Bob Dylan. While the former suffered a serious spinal injury and all live activities ended prematurely, Dylan, as is usually the case, only has rumours: allegedly the musician’s renunciation of playing the guitar in favor of the piano is not just an artistic decision. He has been traveling with a masseur for years.
More columns by Eric Pfeil
In the end it is an artist with a German tongue who takes on the subject with the necessary complexity: the far-sighted Klaus Lage is the only musician who not only addresses back pain as such in one of his songs, but also presents the only solution. He does so in the mid-80s, at the peak of his success, with the play “Tante Lu”, addressed to a physiotherapist.
“Why is it called so stupid?” you might ask. You’re right: funny name, no matter what your job. But that was the time back then! Lage sings about the pain he has acquired from sitting around too much and celebrates the Redeemer in the chorus: “Because you knead me like dough/ And you pat me soft as a diaper/ Your massage is the highlight, Aunt Lu.” It was probably about the rhyme.
But what am I writing here? It doesn’t help at all. I’m now going to my osteopath, after that everything has always been fine again. I also ask if she knows Lage’s “Tante Lu”.