It is a beautiful idea, life without domination and obedience. For his new album “Utopia”, the 74-year-old songwriter and poet arranged this heartfelt wish into fine sounds. A conversation about anger, tenderness, age and whatever else is important.
You are a person who has never been angry with social developments. And yet you also listen to your new album hopefully and lovingly. Have you become milder?
Konstantin Wecker: I am still angry and aggressive too. A text like? Shame on Europe? expresses all the anger that I have had for many years about how the refugees are dealt with. This is a real shame, especially for countries as rich as we are. What really annoys me – to stay with my anger – is that there was a nice thought at the beginning.
You mean the idea of a common Europe?
Konstantin Wecker: The European idea was really very good. Never again war, never again fascism – that’s what I grew up with. My generation, probably unique in world history, never had to experience a war situation in its entire life. Nevertheless, our Europe carried the wars out into the world. Our weapons companies build weapons that are used to slaughter people in Syria. All of this now just seems perverse to me. The threat to fascism is much greater than we saw in our youth. There were a few old Nazis there, but there weren’t any real neo-Nazis. What is happening now is very threatening and myths are being created again due to Corona. Fascism feeds exclusively on myths. That is the great danger, because you cannot face a myth rationally.
Are these fears that you have?
Konstantin Wecker: Yes. I wrote my first ‘Willi’ in 1977. I could never have imagined that what we have now could happen. This is a new movement to the right that we have all over Europe. So that’s still to be angry. In my song ‘Anger und Zärtlichkeit’ I admitted to myself that you have to be angry because otherwise nothing will be changed. But you shouldn’t act out of anger. This is where tenderness comes into play. If so, then one should act out of love. I cannot angrily propagate the idea of “Utopia”, of a loving, unregulated coexistence, but only with hope and love.
You also say that you want to encourage people to break through old thought patterns and to recognize themselves again and again. Is the latter difficult for you when you build on what you’ve read and heard, but not what you feel?
Konstantin Wecker: I think it is common in our society for people to believe at a very young age that they have fully recognized themselves. You always have to be fit and the best. By the way: The fact that people greeted each other with the elbow in Corona times says a lot about society (laughs). I prefer to do it with my fist than with my elbow. This makes it all the more difficult for us to meet ourselves.
Does that mean age?
Konstantin Wecker: No, you don’t have to be as old as I am now. As a 30-year-old I already knew that when I was 20 I had a completely different me than when I was 30. These I’s that we think we recognize rationally, that we build ourselves and that of course have to do with what society is doing demands from us that one has the great chance to find one’s true self in old age. That doesn’t mean you’ve found it when you’re old. But the possibility is there.
Meeting yourself, day after day, is also a new song.
Konstantin Wecker: Yes, maybe that’s the job of old age. Breaking thought patterns and realizing that they are patterns.
Does that keep us fresh?
Konstantin Wecker: I think so. At some point, however, you notice that mortality is knocking. As a young person, I did a lot that damaged myself physically. I probably felt like I was immortal, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it. The only chance would be to encounter the word death as well.
That is excluded in our society.
Konstantin Wecker: Yes, the way age is excluded. In the indigenous societies there were always the so-called elders. They were wise old people who were listened to. Our old people are locked up by us in some old people’s homes and you don’t even hear them anymore. It would be so important to hear what a 90-year-old is saying. And our politicians are by no means elders in that sense. They cannot be that either, otherwise they would be relieved of their office immediately.
Speaking of politicians. Are you wondering how people who are apolitical like in Germany or Austria can be drawn into politics?
Konstantin Wecker: I’m becoming more and more radical. We have been ruled by psychopaths for millennia. From Caligula to Trump, with a few exceptions, everyone who has ruled us to this day has done everything to destroy the earth, to destroy everything that keeps us alive. Culture has always offered a delay, given humanity the chance to pause, to reflect on the real essence of human beings. Actually, culture has always been “utopia”. The basic idea of a peaceful, human coexistence can be found in the entire cultural history.
Why do you think it is so difficult for us to have respect for and for one another?
Konstantin Wecker: Because neoliberals have been telling us for decades that people are actually bad and that the only important thing is to defeat others.
But Corona could have changed a lot, because the abrupt braking of social life made it clear to all of us that you don’t always have to just run and have more to be satisfied. But now there is the feeling that everything is turning back into the old behavior pattern. Have you discovered new experiences with and in yourself as a result of Corona?
Konstantin Wecker: During this time I also wrote the book “Poetry and Resistance in Stormy Times” and then streamed it on the Internet. I just wanted to write about my suffering as an artist without a stage. That was the occasion. But then it got more and more political. I know a lot of people who can barely make ends meet while others earn 60 million euros on a mask deal. You can see how badly capitalism is failing. That is the hope that some people will see it after Corona. Because a lot of empires have perished due to pandemics. You have to see whether something will change as a result of Corona.
You have the ability to use the poetry of words to formulate thoughts and feelings, beliefs and feelings and to bring them to people. This is a gift. Do you sometimes think “wow” at the end of the letter?
Konstantin Wecker: It is downright scary to me. When you suddenly have a poem in front of you that you have written, then you don’t have the feeling that it is from you, but it is there. I never made up all of my poems. Incidentally, not “Willi” back then either. It just flowed out. There is only one song that I wrote very consciously and that with the Borchert quote “Say no”, it is a rationally conceived song. With “Utopia” I realized that my poetry, my poems, force me to deal with age differently. I only noticed it in the poems. I am always surprised. It is a present. Nor is it any merit.
Are you looking forward to the people who will come to your concerts and readings again?
Konstantin Wecker: I’m really looking forward to the hug. I am less fearful on stage than in normal life. I am so with myself. Of course it plays a role that there is an audience with me that is also with itself. That carries me too.
Music tip: Konstantin Wecker “Utopia” (Sturm & Klang) New songs and poems full of poetry and a desire to fight against injustices and tendencies in society that you don’t have to accept in silence. There is also a new version of the legendary “Willi” on the new album, this time dedicated to the Romanian Willi, who died in Hanau in February 2020 when a right-wing extremist ran amok. Like eight other people with a migration background.
Live-Tipps:
- July 21st Konstantin Wecker is a guest with his stage partner Jo Barnikel and the program “Solo for Two” in the “Stage at the Cathedral” series in Linz. Tickets for the poetic evening are available at www.buehneamdom.at
- The tour for the album “Utopia” will be alarm clock on November 17, 2021 lead to the Brucknerhaus in Linz.
- He’s already reading in Wels on July 2nd and 3rd in the courtyard from his book “Poetry and Resistance in Stormy Times”.
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