SINGING IN GERMAN

I tend to listen to Schleswig-Holstein pop radio in the car in the morning, it's an easy way of keeping my German comprehension up to speed. It also makes me thankful I don't live in Hamburg. 15 kilometers of "Stau" on the A7 to the Elbe Tunnel this morning.

Most of the songs are in English, but every now and then the presenters throw in a German one. Which always makes me think that German is not a language which is suitable for modern music. Wagnerian opera, that's one thing; pop songs, no.

It's not as if I dislike German as a language; I went to school in Germany and speak it pretty well. But it just doesn't seem to mix well with electric guitars, drums and bass; and when they do, you get this dreadful "schlager" stuff. Perhaps it's because of all those relative clauses and verbs at the end of the sentence.

I think that Germans themselves secretly realise this. When Germany won the Eurovision Song Contest a couple of years ago, the winning song was in English.

Walter Blotscher