The biggest rock band in the country says hello loudly as they say goodbye.
What you have to give to the Toten Hosen: They know what the hour has come. Your very last album DRINK OFF! WE MUST GO is always aware of its own implications. There is hardly a song that doesn’t look back on the past of what is probably the most important rock band in the country or could be read as a farewell statement. The pre-single “The Show Must Go On” deals with the burden of getting older, while “Trink Aus” reflects on one’s own career.
“Keine Macht den rehearsals” is a hymn to one’s own rehearsal room, “Düsseldorf” celebrates the trousers’ hometown as a haven of friendship. In “Let’s not do it” the band assures us that they will not spend their retirement singing “Sing mein Song”. And “What Once Was” is something like the official announcement of the band’s end: “It’s a good thing that it’s over / I swear it’s true / We won’t forget where we came from.”
It doesn’t always become so self-referential. “Bad Neighbors” explores the psyche of the country, and “What’s wrong with us” is perhaps the strongest song on the album, a simple yet effective argumentative aid for the next confrontation with the shift to the right: “You say you want your country back / I don’t understand what you mean / Hitler’s third Reich / Or Germany in two parts.” As a farewell, the trousers demonstrate once again the balancing act between head-up pro-life support and political responsibility that has brought them into the middle of the German mainstream – also because they can transform both into infectious anthems that anyone can sing along to without any accidents.
They once again demonstrate this ability to embrace everything without prejudice in an emergency with the bonus album. They cover songs that mean something to them – and the authors pay them respect. The guest list ranges from Jürgen Engler to Wolf Biermann and Bettina Wegener, from Vicky Leandros to Blixa Cash, from Hannes Wader and Wolfgang Niedecken to Alphaville and the Stranglers. What a balancing act. Only the Toten Hosen could achieve this.
