Given the world situation, I recommend you just draw the curtains, turn off the WiFi and put on some records. There is hardly a better start in this regard than the song “Morning Paper” by Smog: “The morning paper is on it’s way /And it’s all bad news on every page / So I roll right over / And go to sleep / The evening sun will be so sweet,” Bill Callahan lamented in 1997. We hear his wonderfully delicate guitar surrounded by horns, trumpets and a hurdy gurdy.
Twenty years later, Morrissey felt a similar impulse in his Spent The Day In Bed: “Stop watching the news / Because the news contrives to frighten you”. Moz should have taken his own appeal seriously. Then he would have saved the world from having to watch him throw himself into the arms of the far-right For Britain a year later. Embarrassing and bad. “Spent The Day In Bed” is his last hit.
At least for the television there is still enough energy available
So I turn to more reliable contemporaries: In 2010, Carsten Friedrichs wrote with Superpunk “Call me at work / And tell them I can’t today / Turn off the front doorbell / And pull out the phone”. For his song “I don’t want to fight today” he was inspired by Joey Ramone: “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)”. Also great. But this is not about Christmas carols. Our theme is escapism. Carsten’s instruction “Put on the Sinatra record / And then I’ll turn on the heating” can only be fulfilled these days with a bulging wallet. But at least there is still enough energy for the television.
“Today we’re not going out at all / We’ll stay at home in our pajamas / Just the two of us, like in a dream / And look at Columbo,” Wanda advised us in 2017. “It will be a nice solution / But we both don’t fit in,” says it finally pessimistic in the text. The soft music manages not to let us feel the bitterness of futility.
“Abenteuerland” is an agit-pop work against the totality of reality
The absolute madness, so to speak the Glööckler among the world flight songs, is from the year 1995. It starts quite gloomy: “The dreary sky makes me sick / A heavy gray cloth / That almost suffocates the senses / The habit of visiting”. But then singer Hartmut Engler declaimed short of breath: “I want to go, I want out, I want to make a wish”. The journey begins. Pure, with the help of guitars, sitars and expensive synthesizers, the refrain twists and turns: “Come with me to adventure land / Admission will cost you your mind”. After six minutes of being whisked into the realm of the imagination, the magic is over. “Abenteuerland” is still one of the most fascinating pop songs of all time, an agit-pop work against the totality of reality.
In 1961, Georg Kreisler devised a more economical form of escapism. He only imagined an accompaniment with singing and piano and stated: “Dreams are not foam / Are not smoke and mirrors / But our life / Just like waking hours / Reality means expenses / Dreams are income”. How true that is! In view of Kreisler’s lines, I think of the caged lion in the film “Zur Sache Schätzchen”, about which Werner Enke claims: “He has whole dramas in his head. The real experiences are just a limp substitute for the imagination.”
A reality where Raspberry Coke exists is better than any dream
In 1979, punks also allowed themselves to escape into dreams: “Dreamin’, dreaming is free / People stop and stare at me / We just walk on by / We just keep on dreaming”, Blondie sang. More romance was rare. Unlike Pur’s paradisiacal adventure land, Green Velvet’s “La La Land” is both paradise and hell. “I hope that I have enough change so I can make my brain rearrange”. The track’s protagonist is under duress, he presses himself to chase away his inner emptiness. “La La Land is where I need to be / La La Land is the place that all sets me free”.
Like any good song about drugs, “La La Land” is both a temptation and a warning. Personally, I’ve never been very good at transporting myself to other worlds through substances. My meager attempts failed. I have no talent for drugs. So back to reality. The last song of my little escapism listening session is “I See A Darkness”. I don’t put on the wonderful Johnny Cash version and not the great original by Will Oldham, but instead opt for his very lively version of his 2012 EP “Now Here’s My Plan”. “Did you know how much I love you? / Is a hope that somehow you / Can save me from this darkness”. This darkly looming hit of the century manages to make me feel ready to step outside again to get a drink. Raspberry Cola! A reality where Raspberry Coke exists is better than any dream.
Regarding Jan Müller’s “Reflector” podcast: www.viertausendhertz.de/reflektor
This column first appeared in the Musikexpress issue 12/2022.