Charged places often appear in songs. What would it be like to travel “in real life” to where such favorite songs play? Linus Volkmann tried it out – and ended up in Sauerland and East Westphalia.
Dear normal people, dear parents, I would like to apologize in advance for this column. It’s more special, it’s become a little nerdier than the usual way music is taught to us as humans.
However, I think that everyone who reads an online column at Musikexpress is probably special, niche or completely crazy themselves. In this respect, I open my arms wide for you – and for a text that I have been drawn to for so long.
At first I thought I would have to laboriously paraphrase what kind of principle this is about, but Jan, a friend and writer for the long-running punk magazine Trusts, recently pointed out to me how institutionalized “this thing” is in another genre. When it comes to films, there is a cult – fueled by the Internet – that people visit the real settings of a fictional story. A very banal example: In New Zealand you can come across the places that you saw in the “Lord of the Rings” films. And of course you can also apply this to music and think even more delusionally. For example, as I had done before with regard to the comedy series “Modern Family”.
This clip is a testament to that, it comes from the pre-Trump phase, when people still wanted to and at least had the opportunity to visit the USA. But now we’re heading towards pilgrimage x pop. Therefore: tattoo your blood type on your lower leg, find the YPS tent in the basement, say goodbye to your loved ones, set the out-of-office message. I’ll take you on two exemplary pop pilgrimages.
Live better through music tourism! Neuenhof Castle
Mrs. Baron / The land I live on / Belongs to them / And I must serve them”
(“Mrs. Baron” Jens Friebe)
What is it about? Well, in the first case it’s about the power metropolis of Lüdenscheid and the song “Frau Baron” by Jens Friebe. It comes from the record IT DOESN’T MATTER WITH THE CAR, THE MAIN THING IS NOTHING HAPPENED TO YOU and therefore from 2007. If you don’t know it or can’t hear it anymore, listen to it again. It shouldn’t be your shame.
I like the haunting melody, this solemn, voluptuous atmosphere and, last but not least, the lyrics. A sketchy story that includes lots of pictures – and takes place against a fairytale-like backdrop of the high nobility. Just the line “In the room next to the room next to the room with the spinet,” how much humor, madness and rhythm can fit into a pop song? This piece instantly puts me in a good mood when I think about it again or when someone or something reminds me of it.
I was quite amazed when I learned a few years ago that the scenery of the lyrics wasn’t just a product of the musician’s imagination, but rather refers to a real place from his youth. Jens Friebe grew up in Lüdenscheid. He also saw himself as friends with noble teens who literally lived in a damn castle. At the Neuenhof moated castle. Sounds like an episode of The 5 Friends, but it’s all real.
And as is the case with some budding desires, you only notice them after some time, even though they have been with you unconsciously for a long time. In this case it was this: Why not travel to this castle and see if elements from “Frau Baron” can be found there? In times when the world feels increasingly inhospitable and barren, vacationing in your own country should not be underestimated as an alternative.
Disclaimer: I have never been to Lüdenscheid before. But I still had one opinion about this place – and that was that from a distance I always thought the Sauerland hot spot was a staid, tranquil small town with a manageable cobblestone pedestrian zone, a traditional costume club and many doctors’ practices for the aging population. In short, an indifferent, under-the-radar place with good air that invites you to take a breather and, thanks to its cultural and cosmpolitan lack, motivates you to return to the harsh big city.
However, this framing hardly fits Lüdenscheid, as I quickly realize at the scene of the event. Lüdenscheid feels more like the city fathers and mothers had lost a bet and had to nail a village onto hostile hilly landscapes. San Francisco is completely against it. City marketing was obviously unable to profit from these glaring ups and downs. In the center there is an empty mall that would be too scary a backdrop even for “The Walking Dead” and there is also a lot of vacancy, vacancy, vacancy. Only interrupted by KIK branches, nail salons and cell phone shops. I and my celebrity companion (the visual artist Kwittiseeds) immediately like this understatement. Lüdenscheid is jerky, rough and the opposite of a fat belt (whatever that would have to be).
The area only becomes homely when you drive out a little and the forest can be seen. Here we come across the legendary Neuenhof Castle, surrounded by water and only accessible via a bridge. Exciting. Powerful. The lord of the castle actually lets us in, even though our lowly origins are certainly evident from the coarse-pored poor people’s faces. And suddenly everything is there. We are really in the song “Frau Baron”.
“When we then walk through the hedge maze to the bank”
Behind the castle there is a lush park area where – we hear – many a gardener has broken down. At its center is the sung hedge labyrinth.
“They wash themselves bent over the cold lake”
If you cross this neatly chiselled arrangement of bushes, you come to the bank of a small body of water. It even looks – following the lyrics – excessively cold, there are still remnants of a massive ice skin floating on the surface. Legacy of Winter.
The spinet mentioned at the beginning cannot be found in any of the 22 rooms (!) of the castle. However, the current Mrs. Baron can still remember one, but shrugs her shoulders apologetically, saying that it was recently removed during extensive renovation work. At least one grand piano is still here.
Post Scriptum: We found accommodation in one of the holiday apartments that belong to the castle. Life there was nice and quite grand, even if these rooms are in one of the two side buildings on the site. This kind tip is simply the truth – and was not paid for, honor!
Live better through music tourism! Bad Salzuflen
“Sometimes I think I wasn’t even born yet, in this village at the end of the world. At the end of the world.”
(“The Village at the End of the World” Now!)
Traveling nerdy to some songs is something very special for me too, but it’s still not the first time I’ve done it. Here’s a little reminiscence of a trip to Bad Salzuflen that dates back several years. Bad Salzuflen is considered the nucleus of the Hamburg School. Actors such as Jochen Distelmeyer (Blumfeld), Bernadette Hengst, Frank Spilker (Die Sternen), Bernd Begemann and many others came together here around Frank Werner’s cassette label Fast Weltweit, before the associated sound exploded in Hamburg a few years later.
Back then I rented a random apartment in the spa town and, when the rain let up, looked for relics of that Bad Salzuflen music sensation.
Live better through music tourism! Everything is possible
Maybe you don’t know Jens Friebe, maybe Jochen Distelmeyer has already gotten behind you. But even then I would like to promote the principle of music tourism. Because there is so much to discover, you can get into everything, friends.
Here are a few travel destinations that are at least on my mind. Maybe there’s something for you (#carpool) and if not, choose your own.
1) Big kneading – In the Regente district, the members of the Trio group once lived in a men’s shared apartment shrouded in myth. Their end also described the end of Trio. You should really go there. Especially since they even printed the former address on an album cover…
2) Düsseldorf, South Cemetery – Or maybe stop by the Toten Hosen family grave? Among others, the legendary driver (Uwe Faust) and the drummer “Wölli”, who died in 2016, are already lying there. Be sure to enter the coordinates: Main entrance Südring, on the right at the outer wall, between plots 20 and 27.
3) Federal highway 203 near Tellingstedt – A weathered stone reminds us of the last journey of the chanson singer Alexandra (“My friend the tree is dead”). She had a fatal accident in 1969. This ended an already tragic life story. But that’s also why: a place to remember.
4) Brühl, Gymnich Castle – And another moated castle. The Kelly family once resided here between 1998 and 2002, amidst a lot of fanfare and flashbulbs. Why not!
5) Vienna, Central Cemetery – Also worth a trip: The absurdly tasteless grave of Falco. But wait, I’ve been there before. The celebrity section also includes, among other things, the spectacular memorial for Udo Jürgens, whose gravestone depicts a stone wing.
You can see, if you just let your eyes wander a little, there are many somehow seething places in music history even in the unglamorous Federal Republic. With this in mind, I would like to conclude with the following words:
“Mrs Baron /
I am a farmer’s son /
And tonight /
I’ll give them the lease.”
What happened so far? Here is an overview of all the pop column texts.
