Singing in German at all, Dirk von Lowtzow came up with the idea, as he once said, after a Bernd Begemann concert in Hamburg, it must have been in the early 1990s.

The slightly older Begemann was a kind of father figure for the band Tocotronic - at least that's how it seemed when he had them in 1996 on his third-party television show "Bernd in a bathrobe".

"This is the new generation of lawyers, dear N3 audience," Begemann exclaimed before the three students in their training jackets in his private apartment in Rothenburgsort played the song "Wir sind hier nicht in Seattle, Dirk" into the camera.

The idea was good, but even niche television wasn't ready yet: "Bernd in a bathrobe" was canceled after three episodes had been broadcast at lunchtime.

Jan Wiele

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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In the same year, Begemann's album was released with the contemptuous-sounding title "Now you're in talk shows" (which probably meant the dominating main program shows), which sarcastically etched against artistic sell-outs: "They call you, and you're there / you are cultural inventory".

In October 2021, Tocotronic, now matured into silver foxes, sat on the ARD talk show "Inas Nacht" in Hamburg's Schellfischposten, the singer Dirk von Lowtzow in a white shirt and black jacket, and when the band presented a new song, Ina Müller sang along.

Like many other pop musicians since the advent of streaming, Bernd Begemann has disappeared into the niche today. Music television, insofar as it still plays a role in addition to Internet formats, is limited to the "ultimate chart show" or short appearances in late-night programming, optionally combined with one Fashion show by presenters like Jo Schück and Katty Salié.

who contributes guitar artistry and also exudes the black-rimmed glasses aura of the intellectual Britpop of a Jarvis Cocker.

The other three have grown with their instruments, the production has become opulent, the lyrics are sometimes romantic and dandy-like: "Darling Candy Parzival / Drinking Cherry-Cola from the Grail".

March through the institutions?

And yet, whoever accuses the group of selling out is wrong.

One could also claim with some justification that Tocotronic is on the long march through the institutions that some sixty-eighters started after the revolution had not taken place: They embrace the system (here that of the pop industry), but retain subversion and humor in their lyrics and in the musical form.

If you only look at the lyrics from the album "Nie wieder Krieg" that has now been released, you will quickly see that they are lyrical, at times almost punting games.

"I'm going under / Also ran / In history," it says, for example, or, with direct reference to the spontaneous heritage, "Under the pavement / Is only the sand".

And with the extended Horvath title "Jugend ohne Gott gegen Fascismus" one would not be able to say immediately whether the text is affirmative or whether it makes fun of this youth.

Such doubts also arise with music.

Christmas bells in the title track, string carpets everywhere, the imitated Reinhard Mey sound when Lowtzow sings in a whisper with artificial pauses "Never again war / In Dir / In me" - in some ways the songs are stylistically close to hits, which Hamburg pop musicians in particular have tried it out since the nineties: whether Niels Frevert with "Du muss zu Heim sein" or Blumfeld with "Graue Wolken" and other pieces.

Here even Nino de Angelo's hit "Jenseits von Eden" shimmers through with its catchy "then we lived in vain".

At Tocotronic you can now hear: "If I didn't know you / with me / I would have lived in vain".

But the trick of conjuring up such pathos, of exhibiting it ironically and at the same time somehow also meaning it seriously,

No chance with herbs de Provence

The ironic quote doesn't stop at his own material either.

"I Hate It Here" is the sequel to the 2005 Tocotronic song "But Live Here, No Thanks," the repeat as a farce.

So now we know: "When love ends / It's the middle of the night / A glimmer of light that blinds me / Emerges from my freezer / There's a pizza there / That I'm trying to spice up / With herbs de Provence / I don't stand a chance / I hate it here / And me for it".

That's closer to the funny singer-songwriter Bernd Begemann than to Eichendorff or Nino de Angelo.

And as far as appearances on talk shows are concerned, it always depends on what you sing there.

In the case of Ina Müller, it was the ballad "I emerge", which deals with the underworld and which says: "I can only survive a quarter of an hour in the throat."