GDR musician: Wolf Biermann doesn’t want to be bored when he’s dead

Only those who change remain true to themselves – with this verdict Wolf Biermann declared his renunciation of communism. This doesn’t apply to his songs. A new album for his 88th birthday on November 15th will feature 22 classics and lesser-known titles, musically interpreted by younger artists. These include Annett Louisan, Ina Müller, Meret Becker, Lina Maly and Alligatoah.

“Wolf Biermann re:imagined – songs for now!” is the name of the cover album. A supplementary album is only about perhaps the best-known song by the former GDR opposition member, “Encouragement”. The Hamburg-based songwriter himself contributes several variations of the song.

“If a song is good, if it is a strong poem and has beautiful music, then there is absolutely no reason not to sing it 100 years later, even if the circumstances of the time are now extremely different,” says Biermann in the German interview Press agency. The human substance of hope, relief and despair, of love and hate in the strife of the world is a little older. He adds with a wink: “I can remember exactly what it was like in the Stone Age. We occasionally sang around the campfire in front of the cave.”

The album was an idea from his wife Pamela. It was produced by the Hamburg music publisher Clouds Hill, who also reissued the historic Biermann albums “Chausseestraße 131” (1968) and “Don’t wait for better times” (1973) in a box set to accompany the cover album.

Biermann says he had nothing to do with the selection of the songs. Clouds Hill managing director Johann Scheerer did that. The son of the literary scholar Jan Philipp Reemtsma has just acquired the rights to Biermann’s songs, as his label announces. He also brought together the young artists who could each choose a song.

Alligatoah interprets the song “The Huguenot Cemetery”. Biermann sang it at his famous Cologne concert on November 13, 1976, to which IG Metall had invited him and which resulted in his expatriation from the GDR. In it he describes a walk with his lover through the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery in Berlin. Mentioned are the graves of the poet Bertolt Brecht, the composer Hanns Eisler and the founders of the Communist Party, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. “How close some of the dead are to us, but how dead are some of those who are alive,” goes the refrain.

Double room in the Huguenot cemetery

“Oh yes,” says Biermann when asked if he still feels the same way when these names are mentioned. “And I’ll meet them again soon when I’m dead,” he adds. “I and my wife Pamela have already rented a double room in the Huguenot cemetery.” The time until his death could take a while. “Some hope so, and some also hope that it will happen soon, because in the strife of the world I not only have good friends, but also loyal enemies.”

Biermann lists the dead who will lie near his gravesite, including Hanns Eisler, whom he admired, the playwright Heiner Müller and the philosopher Hegel, as well as the communist authors Johannes R. Becher, Anna Seghers and Stephan Hermlin.

“You see, I’m surrounded by very interesting people there. And that has to be the case so that I don’t get bored to death when I’m dead.” After all, he will have to wait 20 to 30 years for his wife Pamela, who was born in 1963 and “who has been my sweetheart for over 40 years.” “If you make the mistake of marrying a woman who is much too young, then you have to wait in your grave for a very, very long time until she finally comes.”

“Soldier Soldier” and Israel

The German-Polish singer Balbina can be heard on the album with an interpretation of the song “Soldat Soldier”. How does this 1965 anthem of antimilitarism relate to the soldiers defending Ukraine or Israel today? “The Jews are defending themselves against the inhumane Hamas. They are of the opinion that they do not want to be exterminated. Hitler already tried that, and they somehow find that enough.”

Biermann is not a pacifist. He used to sing about the fight of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Would he join an international brigade in Ukraine today? “Of course I would,” he says. After all, his communist-Jewish father was indirectly killed in the Spanish Civil War. As a worker in the port of Hamburg, he sabotaged the loading of armaments and died for it.

“Hit the paws of the fat citizen pig”

For a long time, Biermann saw himself as the true communist. “Either way, the earth will turn red,” Biermann sang 38 years ago in Cologne. Now Annett Louisan, who was born in the GDR, intones the song “So it should be – that’s how it will be” with a tender voice and without any agitprop affectation, which says: “Looking at the bourgeois’ fingers, that’s not enough! Up We want to slap our paws on the fat citizen pig.”

Biermann judges his lines harshly at the time: “That’s a bad, old-fashioned metaphor that’s also unrealistic, because you can tell the really rich people because they’re athletic and skinny, and the really poor people because they’re fat. This also shows you what a stupid verse this is.”

As much as his views have changed, he remains true to himself as an artist. Accompanied by hard beats, he explains the genesis of the song “Encouragement” on the additional album. In another variation, he picks up the guitar again and sings, hums and growls, just as his fans have loved for decades. At the end he holds the tone for three quarters of a minute.

Two days before his 88th birthday, on November 13th, he will be back on stage at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, together with numerous performers from the cover album. Then it will be seen whether his artistic heirs have the same staying power.