Lyrics - Hans Soellner

As a feature here at the LTE , I plan to translate every now and then lyrics of songs from my native German language into English, songs that in some way helped shape the views and attitudes I hold today.

The first song in this series is from none other than the man himself, the in my books legendary Hans Soellner. In all my years on planet earth have I never come across another singer like him. It is hard to describe him, so it is probably best if you just read one of his lyrics. The song I've chosen is titled "Hey Staat", meaning in English "Hey State", from his 1989 album with the same name.

Hey State!

I go to school and learn only what you think I need to know, if that is of interest to me is of no interest to you, you couldn't care less
From the beginning, all you are trying to do is to bend me the way you need me, I let it happen thinking that you probably know what's right
Then I go to work and I slog 8 hours every day in my damned job, and from the money I earn you deduct straight away two thirds
And the few bucks I am left with just about pay the rent, gas and light, and I need to go into debt so not to freeze in winter time

Refrain: Hey State, hey State, hey State,..... today I tell you about all the tings I do for you, and then you tell me what it is you do for me

You tell me what I should wear, how to cut my hair, my education and my job. Even my religion you prescribe, and I fool pay although I don't even have a god.
The one who points his finger at me, I am meant to respect and honour him! The one who has killed entire people or converted over the barrel of a gun.
Buying your drugs, beer and schnaps, but you reprimand me when I take'em, discriminate against me because I smoke, hey you are the state, its you who earns.
You are well off because of people like me, for that you should actually be grateful
that we sustain you, pay you, for your blah blah, your insults and lies.

Refrain: Hey State, hey State, hey State,..... today I tell you about all the tings I do for you, and then you tell me what it is you do for me

Oh man, I am not good enough for your daughters, before others you are ashamed of me
You call me a ferral and dumb, should be glad that there are still dumb ones. Only through the brownnosers can you live, through the ones who don't complain and who hold their hands before their mouths when they talk
For thirty years I played along, and did what you told me, but now, that I stand up and stick up for myself, coz' I finally feel that enough is enough, yeah then you call me a grouch and criminal, wishing you could line me up against the wall.

Refrain: Hey State, hey State, hey State,..... today I tell you about all the tings I do for you, and then you tell me what it is you do for me

And today we are standing at the Odeon's Square and are singing "Blowing in the Wind", with thousands of other peaceniks are we standing here,
Three thousand who show you that protests can be peaceful and responsible, but on TV you show forty skinheads on a rampage somewhere.
You show run amok rioters in Wackersdorf*, how bricks and bottles are thrown
But not the protesters who in sympathy care for your police.
Yeah I am ashamed of the people who fired shots at the Startbahn West protest, but its you who makes sure that everyone believes that all of us are like that.

Refrain: Hey State, hey State, hey State,..... today I tell you about all the tings I do for you, and then you tell me what it is you do for me

You also should be ashamed sometimes, hey state, maybe for the little kids who are dying on leukemia and their parents who are holding their hands and cry.
Your time is up, just like mine, and in the end it won't touch me all that much, but my son has sixty years ahead of him and I'll do everything so that he'll make it.
You are no role model anymore for me, you got obese from all the money that others had to earn with sweat, and even the hunger in this world
is good for your laughs and profits, with which you run a genocide
oh man none of us voted you in to pull that crap.

Refrain: Hey State, hey State, hey State,..... today I tell you about all the tings I do for you, and then hey state, I tell you what I think you represent to me.

Hans is a musician who calls a spade a spade, who expresses in his bavarian dialect a sentiment that I initially just understood, but progressively more and more share. He is not afraid of naming the worst politicians and showing society a less than polished mirror, for which he naturally cops plenty of criticism and hostility from various sides, and is victimized by the so called authorities, you know people with uniforms and mustache. In reality, with their narrow- mindedness, obvious to everyone else but seemingly unbeknown to them, they simply confirm that he is spot on with the musical pictures he paints, that it is a self-righteous community of hypocrites he lives in.

Anyway, I am grateful for his spine and prose, as it helped me put in words my own impression of planet earth, this being that many, if not all governments are predominantly made up of people with very little regard for a just society.

* Wackersdorf - small town in Bavaria where in the 1980's the German government planned and half build a plant for reprocessing nuclear fuel. Massive protests over years wore the government down and they abandoned the project in 1989.
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