The president is dead
| The president is dead | |
|---|---|
| Extra wide | |
| publication | 1981/1991 (re-release) |
| length | 6:24 |
| Genre (s) | German rock , punk rock , new German wave |
| text | Kai Havaii |
| music | Stefan Kleinkrieg |
| Publisher (s) | Metronome Records |
| album | What a country! - What for men: |
| Cover versions | |
| 2006 | Stendal Blast |
| 2008 | Oomph! |
The President is dead is a song by the German rock band Extrabreit , which appeared on the 1981 album Welch ein Land! - What for men: was published.
background
On May 30, 1981 committed John Hinckley, Jr. before the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC an assassination attempt on the then US president , Ronald Reagan . Reagan was walking down the street toward the parked presidential limo after attending a union event, surrounded by his bodyguards , when Hinckley fired several shots at him. Reagan, as well as the White House Press Secretary , James Brady , police officer Thomas K. Delahanty and the Secret Service -Beamte Timothy McCarthy were hit by bullets and injured, some seriously. Reagan was pushed into the limo, which drove off immediately. Reagan survived and the attack was the subject of media coverage around the world.
At that time, the group Extrabreit had the preparations and songwriting for their second album, Welch Ein Land! - What For Men: started. Singer Kai Havaii saw the TV pictures and later described his perception as follows:
“With bated breath we (...) saw the shaky images of Reagan being shot and struck again and again. It seemed, it was the first time that one“ stood by ”at such an event. Deeply impressed by the dark magic of these television images, which seemed like the harbingers of a new, total media age, I wrote the song "The President is dead" that night. "
In his text he did not name a location for the event, avoided the use of names, added some fictional details to the plot, and let the president die, so that in his opinion "the assassination became the" assassination attempt par excellence "and the" president "became universal metaphor of the (western) political leader ”.
The song was by Thomas Hermann with a synthesizer - Intro provided that at sirens recalled. The recording took place in the Hiltpoltstein studio , the production was carried out by Extrabreit and Manfred Neuner. It appeared on the album, which was originally published exclusively on record and music cassette , as the sixth song and thereby opened the second side of the respective sound carrier. It was not released as a single .
Cover versions
So far, two cover versions of the song have been released: The new German hardship band Stendal Blast recorded it in 2004 for their album Schmutzigeehand , Oomph! covered it in 2008 and released it as the third song of the five-track maxi CD Das letzte Streichholz .
Web links
- Lyrics at musixmatch.com
- Live footage of the attack on YouTube , accessed on January 22, 2020.
- Assassination report, CBSnews.com
- Assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan - "Attention, there was shooting!" , One day - Zeitgeschichten on Spiegel Online , March 25, 2011
swell
- Kai Havaii: Hard as jam - a rock'n'roll novel from the provinces, construction publishing group, 1st edition 2007, ISBN 978-3-378-00679-9
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Extra Wide Story by Kurt Grosskurt, Part 24 , accessed on January 10, 2020
- ↑ cover.info , accessed January 22, 2020
- ↑ discogs.com , accessed January 22, 2020