The Real Berlin Experience
Urban identity and how the indie-pop band Von Wegen Lisbeth reflects the real Berlin experience through instrumentation, lyricism, and wit.
Abstract
This article attempts to introduce, explain, and analyze the lyricism of German indie-pop band Von Wegen Lisbeth in the context of their unintentional and unconscious promotion of their home city Berlin by looking at a handful of tracks from their debut album Grande, and argues how the music of Von Wegen Lisbeth is a true reflection of what life in the city means.
Von Wegen Lisbeth
Würden Von Wegen Lisbeth die Musikkarriere an den Nagel hängen und stattdessen eine Talkshow moderieren (sonntags zur besten Sendezeit, wenn sich Deutschlands erhitzte Gemüter noch über den Tatort echauffieren), man dürfte sich wohl über folgende Themen freuen: Muss man dem Lieferdienst Trinkgeld geben, obwohl die Pizza ohnehin schon unmenschlich teuer ist? Warum wurde für meine Wohnung schon wieder die Miete erhöht, muss ich jetzt etwa im Coworkingspace übernachten? Und fehlt dem RTL-Dschungelcamp nur noch die Schwarz-Weiß-Optik, um in Neuköllner Studentenkneipen als Klassiker diskutiert zu werden? Es sind die kleinen, alltäglichen Belanglosigkeiten, die oftmals so viel mehr über eine Gesellschaft aussagen als die vermeintlich großen politischen Themen und Von Wegen Lisbeth zeichnen in ihren Texten nach wie vor ein pointierteres Bild unserer Zeit als uns wohl manchmal lieb ist - als hätte man mit dem Skalpell einen präzisen Schnitt von Berlin bis Annaberg-Buchholz gezogen.
Um den sperrigen Bandnamen ranken sich unzählige Gründungsmythen - bestätigt werden konnte bisher keiner, nur eins gilt als wissenschaftlich bewiesen: Nach tausenden Elevator-Pitches und jahrelanger Marktanalyse erklärten Versuchspersonen, denen man „Von Wegen Lisbeth“ ins Ohr flüsterte, durchschnittlich mehr Appetit auf Schokopudding zu verspüren.
There is much to say about the band Von Wegen Lisbeth. Not only as musicians but also as artists and comedians. The above quote was taken from the bibliography section of their official YouTube channel. I’m not sure of anything that could have introduced this group better.
There is something special that these five school friends have created. It’s difficult to describe their music without just showing it, which is why this article is littered with video links. They’ve allowed their music to be categorized as indie-pop, but only “ganz einfach weil sich dahinter alles verbergen kann.” In reality, the sounds they use for each track are almost completely unique to those few minutes of time. I’ll expand further into their discography in a later section. However, it is important to note early on that these men are not average musicians.
Now, I’d like to believe my music taste to be varied and extensive. Listening to music is an honest hobby of mine. The statistics I can collect indeed reflect this. At the end of every year, the music streaming application Spotify sends out a report to each user which includes statistics over their most listened to music, their most played songs, their most played artists, etc. They also coincidentally give the sum of how long each user actively listened to music on the application.
2019 | 63,588 reported minutes listened
2020 | 73,296 reported minutes listened
2021 | 47,365 reported minutes listened
In total, only counting the times I listened to music on only the Spotify application, I spent around 184,250 minutes listening to music in the span of three years. Casual mathematics concludes that this is around 128 days worth of listening in this time frame.
The sole reason I’m showcasing this information is because of the fact that, with this extensive catalog of music that I’ve subjected myself to, I can say with absolute confidence that Von Wegen Lisbeth is one of my all-time favorite artists. For the past three years and currently, I may even interject that Von Wegen Lisbeth is within my top ten musicians on earth.
With this assertion, of how much music I listen to and of how much I adore Von Wegen Lisbeth, I feel as though I have slight grounds for speaking over their instrumentation and lyricism, even without any proper musical theory background.
Who is Von Wegen Lisbeth?
Julian “Jules” Hölting | Matthias Rohde | Robert Tischer | Dominik "Doz" Zschäbitz | Julian Zschäbitz
Von Wegen Lisbeth is a five-man musical group that was originally formed in their seventh grade of school. They began performing officially in 2014 as a supporting act to indie-rock band Annenmaykantereit. In 2016, they released their debut album Grande.
As of summer 2022, they have released two studio albums, three EPs, and a healthy amount of singles. With just around twenty music videos posted on their official YouTube channel and currently holding concerts scheduled throughout the year, they have only grown in popularity over the years.
Finding Von Wegen Lisbeth
I began to study the German language in my first year of university. At the time, I had vague plans of studying abroad, but my knowledge of the country was quite limited—let alone my knowledge of Berlin. On the very first day of my very first German language course, the graduate student who would turn out to be my instructor the whole school year, Jonas, started off the morning with a video that would quite literally change everything for me.
Annenmaykantereit is perhaps one of the most well-known German artists—at least in the indie-rock community. The unique and rough vocals of Henning May are too iconic and unmistakable for even those with no German knowledge, as a song or two have been given the status of semi-viral on social media platforms worldwide. With their most famous music video on Youtube, 2016s Pocahontas, standing currently at 80 million views. To put this into context, Von Wegen Lisbeth’s most popular music video stands currently at 11 million views.
This article is not about Annenmaykantereit. However, they are important to be aware of, if not for their amazing career in their own right, then for their ties to Von Wegen Lisbeth—something which directly influenced me in this anecdote.
While listening to the Pocahontas live recording, the video which was linked above, I fell immediately in love. It was impossible how much I wanted to listen and know and feel more of what that video gave me. It was just so good. After classes on that first day, I went back to my freshman dorm and listened to it again and again.
And, in the side-bar list of recommendations sat the lovely video titled Bitch by Von Wegen Lisbeth. I remember emailing Jonas not long after that, raving about this band and asking if we could listen to them next in class. And then we did, and I loved it.
Fall of 2019, I would listen to Von Wegen Lisbeth’s album Grande while cooking breakfast in the public kitchen, played it out in the common room for my dormmates, and listened to it while walking around campus. My German music playlist would only expand from just the two bands, but even to this day, with hours of German music saved and meticulously ordered, Von Wegen Lisbeth has proven to take up a good majority of my German playlists.
Singing About Berlin, As A Berliner
Ich hab so viel Pferde in der Haube, nenn' mich Bibi oder Tina
Ich fahr' in zwei Minuten von Lichtenberg nach China
Ich kauf kein Bitcoins, Digga, ich bin ein Stratege
Mein Krypto-Währung sind Sanifair-Belege
Mach mal deine Fahrrad-Tour mit Uwe und Anette
Ich hab' keine Plakette, aber Zigarette
Hippies wollen sich ein Festival bau'n
Ich hab' 5000 Watt in mein'm Kofferraum
Sanifair Millionär CYPHER, BLOND
Perhaps it’s because of their style or because the lyricist of the band simply loves Berlin, but mentions of places in and around the city have made their way into almost every track Von Wegen Lisbeth has touched.
Even within the ironic and sarcastically playful 2020 production of pop trio BLOND’s cypher named Sanifair Millionär, created at the beginning of quarantine with a whole list of over fifteen artists collaborated to create an almost eight and a-half-minute long green-screened eyesore of a video, in the twenty seconds Von Wegen Lisbeth was allowed a verse, they managed to include the above Berlin location shout-out (as well as a shout-out to the magical horse girls Bibi and Tina).
In their debut album, Grande, of the fourteen tracks, Von Wegen Lisbeth casually and seamlessly mentions a district, a street, a train line, a water body, or any other named place in Berlin over ten separate times. From the U6 to Rathenow, Grenzallee to Schlachtensee.
In their 2019 album, sweetlilly93@hotmail.com, I didn’t count the name-drops in each of the thirteen tracks. However, to show that their proficiency of naming is not lost with time, as the album sports track names such as Jede Ratte der U8 and Westkreuz.
Das hier ist meine Stadt
Meine Straße, meine Häuser kenne ich viel länger
Meine Sparkassenpenner
Grande Track 12 | Becks Ice
Mentioning the name of a Berlin place doesn’t do much, on the other hand, compared to the things that Von Wegen Lisbeth says about Berlin—how they describe not only the city, but also life in the city.
Looking at the tracklist, all songs can be argued to be indicative of Von Wegen Lisbeth’s mastery of this undertaking they’ve chosen. However, just looking at the first three tracks themselves shows all we need to know: Von Wegen Lisbeth’s wit, sound, and poetry are fit only for Berlin.
Track 1 | Meine Kneipe
[Strophe 1]
Schneid dir die Haare, mach jetzt Ballett
Schmeiß' doch dein Studium oder werd' plötzlich fett
Hass deinen Bruder, lieb die AfD
Zieh doch nach Brooklyn oder Fürstenwalde-Spree
[Chorus]
Ist mir egal, mit wem du chillst
Schlaf' auf jedem Klo mit jedem Typen, den du willst
Mach mal dein ding mit Herz und Blut
Mach dich glücklich, mach dich traurig mach - mach - mach es gut
Mach was du willst, aber bring nie wieder
Deine neuen Freunde in meine Kneipe
Meine Kneipe was one of the first Von Wegen Lisbeth tracks I listened to, along with Bitch, Chérie, and Sushi. It was perhaps one of the first songs I actively looked at the translation for, and once I did…
It’s nice when songs are given a unique perspective. One of my favorite songs is Cleopatra by the Lumineers. Cleopatra was sung from a very specific point of view and in a way to explain this character’s background, life, and thoughts. However, a notable difference between that song and Meine Kneipe, is that Cleopatra starts the lyrics with the very on-the-nose line “I was Cleopatra,” before going on to tell about herself. On the other hand, Meine Kneipe starts off vague, extremely vague, talking to you, the listening party. The voice is telling you of things you could go off and do, and only at the end of the chorus do we realize that the person singing to us is, in fact, the owner of the bar—it is his Kneipe.
And very quickly, it turns from being a semi-supportive, be-who-you-are type song sharply towards being sarcastic, sardonic, standoffish, and extremely hilarious. The first time I realized what “aber bring nie wieder; Deine neuen Freunde in meine Kneipe” meant, I found it beyond amusing. Oh, what a way to start your album! Setting the stage perfectly for an entire tracklist full of this style of witty, quick, deprecating, and ingenious lyricism that continues to this day.
Track 2 | Chérie
[Strophe 1]
Du bist nicht super-selbstbewusst
Nur weil du zur Begrüßung meine Hand zerquetschst
Gut ist der, der schon von Anfang an
Auf einen sehr breit aufgestellten Abschluss setzt
Ja, ich weiß, trinkst du dein Bier noch aus
Wie macht sich sowas eigentlich auf deinem Lebenslauf
Sexy Blick, wenn du den Rauch ausstößt
Ich gucke neidisch zu, wie er sich in Luft auflöst
[Pre-Chorus]
Und du siehst mich nachts um Vier
Ich schleich' auf Socken aus der Tür
[Chorus]
Mach es gut, Chérie
Als dein iPhone so grazil
In den Landwehrkanal fiel, wusste ich
Schöner wird es nie
Tut mir Leid, doch ich bin raus
Sag Bescheid, wenn du mich brauchst
As mentioned before, Chérie was one of the tracks I first listened to. I should mention here, if it was not obvious with the last track, or even in the few seconds allotted in Sanifaire Millionär, Von Wegen Lisbeth has quite an… odd sound. It’s mentioned in multiple biographies and descriptions of them, this usage of unusual instruments—ranging from Glockenspiel to steel drum.
When asked in an interview by Olaf Neumann for Südkurier over a possible deeper meaning for using “billige Kinderinstrumente,” Julian Hölting said the following:
…Wenn wir ein Glockenspiel benutzen, dann, weil es einfach geil klingt! Mit der Zeit haben wir immer mehr Trash zusammengekauft oder –geklaut. Im Müll von der Deutschen Oper entdeckten wir irgendwann eine alte, kaputte Steel-Drum. Und die Sounds, die aus einem Casio-Keyboard rauskommen, das in den Achtzigerjahren eher für Kinder gebaut wurde, findet man auf keinem herkömmlichen Instrument. Der Casio ist der billigste Sampler, den man benutzen kann. Wir haben da zum Beispiel reingepfiffen oder den Klang einer Bierflasche gesampelt.
These odd sounds, they’re made for the sake of having something that sounds odd. With Chérie, the first few seconds is all you need to hear to get this feeling of childish joy. Nothing intricate, just a simple beat, some strings, and the bright and light trill of some random instrument. You can’t help but move yourself to it—and this is just one of their tracks!
Almost every one of Von Wegen Lisbeth’s songs has this effect, this immediate draw to continue listening after the first few seconds of funky and fun instrumentation.
Track 3 | Komm mal rüber bitte
[Strophe 1]
Und du willst mit 17 Jahren
Wirklich auf die Uni gehen
Es kann sein dass ich mich täusche
Doch man kann Sperma auf deinem Hoodie sehen
Papa sagt so geht’s nicht weiter
Papa will mehr Leistung sehn
Und er nennt mich voller Panik
Immer nur ‚Du-weißt-schon-wen’
[Refrain]
Und all die zuckersüßen Chancen flüstern mir ins Ohr
"Komm mal rüber bitte" [x4]
[Strophe 2]
Ist die Snooze Funktion von meinem Handy
Die Erfindung des Jahrhunderts
Warum rennt hier jeder weiter
Viel zu weit und keinen wunder'ts
Sie rufen "Excel, Excel yeah, Tabelle"
Jetzt wird outgesourced im Hinterkopf
Doch im Wechselbad meiner Gefühle
Gibt es keinen Bademeisterjob
Humor and good sounds aside, Von Wegen Lisbeth continuously proved to always know how to impress even further. There is nothing quite like home, and when your home is someplace as unique as Berlin, how can you even begin to describe it?
Yet, this group has found out just how to describe the indescribable, and they do it in the most underwhelming yet poetic way.
This is the common human experience, reeking of Berlin as much as it does cigarette smoke and spilled beer.
Komm mal rüber bitte is arguably the most „funky” sounding track of the album, starting with a deep barking, burping, groovy instrumentation, which is yet another testament to their unique sound production indeed. However, what makes this track rise about others is the lyrics—not only in the aforementioned witty way in which most songs have been presented, but rather, for what this whole article is about—a love letter to not only a modern Berlin, but the experience of growing up in this modern era too.
To get a sense of Berlin, they first have to get a sense of the youth—the listeners themselves. Von Wegen Lisbeth have been young people in Berlin for years now, they know what it’s like. In this track, the funk is just another way to convey this uneasy period of time. You don’t really know what’s going on, and all you can do is live it through in whatever way life works out and takes you.
You’re seventeen years old, your father gives you angst, you sleep past your alarms, and you go through the motions.
Doch im Wechselbad meiner Gefühle
Gibt es keinen Bademeisterjob
There’s a lyric that has stood out to me the most while researching for this article, and it comes from this track. These two lines are but poetry. And yet, it is something so eloquent and lovely and deep, which of course comes after a verse waxing poetics about semen stains on your hoodie. Von Wegen Lisbeth never ceases to amaze.
Along with this, this shows yet another way this band has figured out Berlin to its roots. The casual vulgarity in the lyricism of Von Wegen Lisbeth is in itself reflective of this greater and modern Berlin. Casually walking down the street in a random city center, passing by the imagery of naked people on adverts or magazine covers—the Dildo King logo on the roadside. All this as though vulgarity is normalcy, which, to be fair, it is.
Track 5 | Bitch
[Strophe 1]
Was ist heute so passiert?
Meine Virendatenbank wurde aktualisiert
Bitteschön und vielen Dank
Das ist nice, das ist nice
Und was ist sonst noch so passiert?
Richtung Dreieck Havelland
Draußen kurz vor Rathenow
Zehn Minuten Stop and Go
Das ist nice, das ist nice
Und was ist sonst noch so passiert?
Tod von Taube durch U6
Ich hab eh nie ganz gecheckt
Warum die eigentlich hier wohnt
Bei all den Nägeln und so
[Pre-Chorus]
Und was ist sonst noch so passiert?
Als ich in die Küche ging
Um drei Minuten vor halb acht
Hab' ich kurz nicht an dich gedacht
[Chorus]
Bitch, ich bin für dich
Den ganzen Weg gerannt
Den ganzen Weg alleine [x2]
Bitch, ich bin für dich
Den ganzen Weg gerannt
Den ganzen Weg alleine [x2]
Alleine bis zu dir
[Strophe 2]
Was ist heute so passiert?
Aus Nord-Nord-West kommt heut der Wind
Beckham plant sein fünftes Kind
Wie schön, dass die geboren sind
Das ist nice, das ist nice
Und was ist sonst noch so passiert?
Fünfzig Grad im ICE
Unverschämt, echt nicht okay
Killerwels im Schlachtensee
Das ist nice, das ist nice
Und was ist sonst noch so passiert?
Im Doppeldecker 104
Hatt' ich oben zufällig
Die erste Reihe nur für mich
Das ist nice, das ist nice
When it comes to an everyday experience, nothing showcases it better than Bitch by Von Wegen Lisbeth. Things that you don’t even realize are put into a song that you can do nothing but relate to…if you’re a Berliner yourself.
This is where our point is yet again realized. Von Wegen Lisbeth has this efficiency to sing about Berlin in a way that unintentionally reflects this true Berlin experience, not with tourists in mind, but still producing this image of Berlin that is… not so much enticing, but authentic and real—something that draws people from around the globe to Berlin the most.
Everyone experiences Berlin differently, and there are so few overlaps in these experiences, but somehow Von Wegen Lisbeth has been able to find this overlap and explain it in the most tantalizing of ways.
As the quote at the beginning of this article said,
Es sind die kleinen, alltäglichen Belanglosigkeiten, die oftmals so viel mehr über eine Gesellschaft aussagen als die vermeintlich großen politischen Themen und Von Wegen Lisbeth zeichnen in ihren Texten nach wie vor ein pointierteres Bild unserer Zeit als uns wohl manchmal lieb ist - als hätte man mit dem Skalpell einen präzisen Schnitt von Berlin bis Annaberg-Buchholz gezogen.
The way Von Wegen Lisbeth sings about Berlin is just listing off normal things that could happen, which is most prominent in Bitch—a song quite literally just recounting “Was ist heute so passiert?”
Von Wegen Lisbeth does not sing so much about techno clubs or historic tourist sites, they sing about dropping your phone into a canal, seeing dead birds in the U-Bahn, and how everyone recently started making podcasts.
It’s not tourism, but it has the grounds to sell this city experience as much as a VisitBerlin commissioned travel vlog, as hilarious as that conjecture may seem.
Looking at all these lyrics and listening to all these songs, it is obvious that if you know what they’re singing about, then you know. And, before I came to Berlin myself, I didn’t know. I didn’t even understand the German language well enough to know what even the chorus was saying if I didn’t actively look at automated translations of the lyrics.
I listened to Von Wegen Lisbeth without knowing a thing about Berlin, but then I went to Berlin. The songs I listened to didn’t influence how I saw Berlin. I experienced Berlin for myself, and when I listened to these songs again, I realized that they were right. It made sense. I finally understood what they meant, after riding in an ICE and after seeing a dead bird in the U-Bahn.
Track 6 | Wenn du tanzt
[Strophe 1]
Latte art, slowly hand-brewed, flat, white coffee
Ist einfach Kaffee, wenn du tanzt
Fiese Heuschrecken, reudige Immobilienhaie
Alles Tiere, wenn du tanzt
Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Cloppenburg, Haldensleben
Alles Kreuzberg, wenn du tanzt
Linkin Park, Timmy Bendzko, Robin Schulz, Revolverheld
Alles Kunst, wenn du tanzt
[Pre-Chorus]
Schließt die Schulen dieser Stadt
Weil es keinen Sinn mehr hat
Noch ein Weltbild zu vermitteln
Das schon durch das kleinste Schütteln
Deines linken Schulterblatts
Einfach so zusammenkracht
Und nur Schutt und Asche ist
Wenn du dann am Tanzen bist
[Chorus]
Denn, dass diese Welt nicht zusammenfällt
Liegt nur allein an deinen Beinen [x3]
Dass diese Welt nicht zusammenfällt
Liegt nur an deinen Beinen, wenn du tanzt
Nothing quite grips the soul as much as something that is easy to dance to, something that entices and addicts the body to move and the head to nod and feet to stomp. To end this article, I invite you to listen to Von Wegen Lisbeth’s most popular title and watch one of the best music videos to ever exist.
I could write a novel over this track. Instead, however, this time around, I will let the track speak for itself.