Lutz van der Horst: So I recognized the voice – Heinz Strunk, does that have to be the case? But I don’t know the piece. It’s off to a good start…
Heinz Strunk is right. This is him with Jacques Palminger and Rocko Schamoni. As Studio Braun, they recorded this song ages ago, and the YouTube video made it a cult belatedly.
Lutz van der Horst: I own several Studio Braun CDs with their phone pranks, which I really think are incredibly funny. I have also read every book by Heinz Strunk. I’m ashamed now that I didn’t know the number!
This isn’t an exam.
Lutz van der Horst: (sceptically) Reassuring.
Stefan Raab — “Space Taxi”
Lutz van der Horst: I probably would never have thought of this song again. In any case, funny songs have a rather short half-life, this one should be one of them. I think you can tell very clearly that it was composed by Stefan Raab. His songs usually have a touch of funk – unmistakable. By the way, I got to know Bully Herbig in person for the first time yesterday – and Raab was there too.
How you live!
Lutz van der Horst: Well, I just moderated “Blamieren oder Kassieren” for “TV Total” and then I was able to talk to both of them.
In the song and film, many of the jokes are based on a stereotype of homosexuality.
Lutz van der Horst: I’m sitting here in front of my huge wall of DVDs, but I have to admit that I’ve never seen “(T)Raumschiff Surprise”. Nevertheless, it is clear that this song and especially the film about it could no longer be made like this today. It’s also interesting that the much bigger face-off success, “Der Schuh des Manitou”, would no longer be possible today. Back then, these films were looked at in a completely different way. It was assumed that Bully meant well with his characters, and that was enough to legitimize him. It’s different today. However, for me even then, this queer spaceship crew was dispensable. I’m not going to say anything negative about Bully right now though – after all I want him to invite me to “LOL”.
The Doctors — “A Song for Now”
Lutz van der Horst: When I was young, the doctors were the big thing – but they never really appealed to me like that. The only thing that irritated me was that two of their records were on the Index in the 80s. I would have loved to have had that at the time! Other than that, there’s a lot of fun punk that’s really unlistenable, but Doctors still manage to make fun music. I think they’re a lot better now than they used to be. Speaking of: “You can’t bring it anymore today”, the doctors have recently renounced their song “Die Fette Elke”, even apologized, I mean. As with “Dicke” by Westernhagen, I had always thought anyway: That’s not funny at all, what does everyone always have with it?
“Ein Lied für Now” was also one of many “humorous” lockdown songs from 2020, you worked in the genre yourself as Tippy Toppy with Thilo Gosejohann.
Lutz van der Horst: That was really an exciting time that I wouldn’t want to miss in retrospect. Because a lot of things happened there that would never have happened otherwise. I too sat at home, didn’t have any orders and just did what I’d always wanted to do. The time for that suddenly came.
The Rhenish cheerful natures – “I’m blue for now”
Lutz van der Horst: Is that the antelope gang?
Exactly, but under a different name with a subversive Ballermann piece.
Lutz van der Horst: Drinking songs – that’s an interesting genre, of course. Especially when you live in Cologne, you can’t escape it. Drinking songs are everywhere here, the carnival does the rest. But does something like that stand up to sober ears? I do not think so. This only works with alcohol and with others in a room. Then something unfolds its, well, magic…
The Toten Crackwhoren in the trunk — “Build me a closet”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAgi-DIEFGs
Lutz van der Horst: First of all: I don’t know it, but it has good energy. I also like how there is obviously a reversal to classic rap lyrics. Basically, I think fun songs always suck when it’s just about a funny text – and the music has been forgotten again. It’s different here, it’s really moving forward. I would dance to that in the “Disse” straight away.
Jeans Team — “Bomber Jacket”
Lutz van der Horst: For me it’s one of those songs where I say: I find it funny, but I don’t want to listen to it a second time now. For me, music is just something very emotional, I need music to process pain, so I see my record collection as a pharmacy – from which I can get my medication for various mental illnesses. And that’s where funny songs have a hard time. I can endure them best if I also like the music – and that’s not the case here.
Deichkind — “In Nature”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1wKQFuzng
Lutz van der Horst: They are Deichkind. They’re great in general, their last album WER SAGT DASN DAS? I bought it on vinyl. This dry North German humor that is inherent in the band is actually the nicest for me. And their classic “Bon Voyage” has five points from me on iTunes. That is a high honor! I’ve digitized my entire CD collection – and every song has a rating.
Sounds pretty nerdy.
Lutz van der Horst (laughs): Last year I transferred everything to a new hard drive and thought for a moment that all my stars and all the crappy album covers were gone. That wasn’t funny anymore. But fortunately things could be made legible again.
Lutz van der Horst was born in Cologne in 1975 and appears both as an author and in front of the camera for, for example, the “heute-show”. But Van der Horst also appears in countless programs of the local comedy company, and was even the voice of the Pro7 show “Gina-Lisa’s World”. In the pandemic year 2020, his ironic pop project Tippy Toppy caused a stir. The viral hit “Disdance” was performed and admired in the ZDF “Fernsehgarten”. In “Lutz van der Horst – der Filmtalker” the entertaining Rhinelander discusses topics such as censorship, the “Star Trek” cult and the appeal of trash films like “Sharknado” with a variety of guests.
This blind date first appeared in the Musikexpress issue 02/2023.