Now The Doctors have also received a knighthood from Asterix and Obelix: In the new volume “The White Iris”, the Gallic village musician Troubadix sings a song – “Claudius has a German Shepherd”, a variation of “Claudia has a German Shepherd”. The song about a very special love for animals was indexed in 1987 and was only available on the record “Ab 18”, which was actually only available to those aged 18 and over. In reality, as Farin Urlaub and Bela B later clarified, the piece is a satire on loneliness.
Doctors themselves now distance themselves from the song, as well as from classics like “Elke,” because they want to distance themselves from sexism or sexual identity.
The German translation of the Asterix volume, the 40th adventure, comes from Klaus Jöken, the French original from Fabcaro (author) and Didier Conrad (illustrator). It should not go unmentioned that Troubadix’s audience is completely blown away by “Claudius has a sheepdog,” with which the bard criticizes the Roman imperialists.
That’s why Die Ärzte no longer play their hit “Elke”.
This is what ancient Latins call “tempi passati”. Loosely translated: Fortunately, times are long gone. With the official announcement that they will no longer play the 1988 song “Elke” live, the West Berlin fun punk trio Die Ärzte is banishing part of their own song history into the poison cabinet.
The track, written by Farin Urlaub, is about a love affair with a fat woman. “Elke” was one of the most frequently played classics in the band’s extensive live program. At least until the recent past. Now the song has apparently been “cancelled”.
This insight can be drawn from Twitter dialogues that took place around the doctor gigs in Berlin. In response to the digital demands of some fans who missed “Elke” in the set, songwriter Farin Urlaub cleared the air.
“We don’t play anything like that anymore, it’s the last millennium,” said the platinum-blonde founding member. Especially in the early days, Urlaub always dropped jokes bordering on tasteless. For example the “Lullaby” or “Claudia” and her German Shepherd. A loyal animal that liked to jump into bed to have sex (“…and then it all went well”). Lyrics of that high school graduation “funnyness” that today’s men in their 60s no longer want to have much to do with. Back then they also told “whale” jokes on stage between songs. Punk and Debilo lived next door to each other for a long time.
In “Elke” it says in the middle part: “She has thighs that weigh a hundred pounds, she is incredibly fat / I recently climbed on her without an oxygen device”. These provocatively silly stupid songs were their “Phase One” until the band split temporarily into “Westerland” in 1988.
In the rich treasure trove of legends surrounding Die Ärzte it is said that the real fans Elke and Daniela literally bombarded the band with calls and letters. One of the letters revealed that the two were seriously overweight. In an escalated call, the angry Farin is said to have threatened to make a song out of this harassment. Which is what happened next.
Other titles such as the incest song “Geschwisterliebe” from 1986 ended up on the Federal Testing Agency’s index, where horror or porn films also receive the “18+” label. The young doctors were sometimes very dangerous for the grinning youth – and made fun of it, like the “Explicit Lyrics” rappers later did in the USA. Your album “From 18” sings more than one song about it.
During a radio interview on the “Deutschlandfunk Kultur” station, Farin Urlaub put the Provo actions of that time into a pop-historical context: Although he is not ashamed of his youthful swashbuckling numbers, he would “probably deal with them differently today” . In this clear and calm change of heart, the doctors simply announce that they have become a bit more reflective. There’s nothing to say against that, “forever punk” is a no-brainer slogan anyway.
Especially since it can be expected that the extremely high-profile stage entertainers will certainly find ways to mock their own woke decisions live in the near future.