On the mountains, the snow glistens in the sun.

Wolfgang Ambros lives where other people go on vacation.

He is sitting on a heavy wooden bench on his patio.

His eyes disappear behind the almost black lenses of the sunglasses, which reflect the mountain panorama.

Sniffing, the family dog ​​combs the garden, the brown and white fur on his stomach wet from the snow.

An insect hotel hangs on the wall of the house.

Wolfgang Ambros lights a cigarette, takes a deep puff, blows the smoke up into the air and pours himself more beer.

Anna Schiller

volunteer.

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There are songs that anyone can sing along to.

In Germany, Wolfgang Ambros, who turns 70 on Saturday, is associated with “Schifoan”, an après-ski classic.

The song is still part of the fixed repertoire in ski huts today.

During his performances, he often has the audience sing the piece.

"It's a mark of respect that I've earned," he says, laughing his rough, deep laugh.

He has now written a book about his eventful life: "A man would like to stay".

In it, he openly tells of flights of fancy and strokes of fate.

"I didn't want to stylize myself as a hero, which I'm not and never was," he says.

“They turned us into farm animals”

His breakthrough came early.

The singer became famous overnight in 1971 with the song "Da Hofa".

LSD, cocaine, alcohol: excess was part of the music industry in the 1970s.

Ambros also expanded his consciousness.

“I tried to use drugs for my mental advancement.

It wasn't just senseless celebration.

Those were experiences to be taken seriously.” Some songs were written while intoxicated.

"Just a little bit, because if you take too much, the thoughts run too fast to catch them." The synapses opened up, new possibilities opened up within a thought structure.

He wrote "Slowly wochs' ma z'amm", a love song for his wife at the time: "Sometimes everything is easy, and then again it's not, and sometimes it's just a dream, but actually it's indescribable".

Today, music stars mainly have to perform.

"I had the blessing of early birth," says Ambros.

When he started, this "machinery", commercialization, did not yet exist.

And yet, he writes in his book, success has made him a passenger in his own life.

He was reserved at the beginning of his career, shy.

"A line," he describes his stature.

Nobody took him seriously.

He had to learn how to entertain an audience live.

From then on, he released a single every six months.

Every week he flew to Germany for the "ZDF hit parade".

"I just sang the songs down," he says.

"We've been turned into farm animals." The record company chased him from appointment to appointment.

"Today I know: I was exhausted."

Wolfgang Ambros pulled the rip cord.

He wanted time for himself, bought a ticket to New York, traveled to Los Angeles and Mexico.

When he returned home five months later, his wife had moved out.

He had trouble recognizing himself, Ambros says of his younger self.

"There was also a lot of imagination involved." Nevertheless, looking back, he has no regrets: "Every experience was necessary and helped me further."