A proud ship
A proud ship is a German song about the emigration issue of the 19th century.
history
Heinrich Schacht (1817–1863) wrote the text for the song known today with the title: The German Emigrants . He was a working-class poet, not a musician. So he wrote lyrics on already known melodies and replaced the existing texts in well-known songs with his own. He published the text in 1855 without specifying a melody in his pictures from Hamburg's Volksleben . He published a revised version in his Seemanns Liedertafel collection , which first appeared in 1860. This songbook became very popular and had twelve editions by 1903. Schacht gave the melody there. Love was the most sacred of the bonds . In addition, the stanza scheme was changed: the last two verses of each stanza in the print of 1855 were shortened by two accents, and two more verses per stanza were added. These changes were probably necessary because of the underlay for the melody. The song Love threw the most sacred of the gang had Albert Methfessel 1828 in Hamburg as the song of the Hamburg citizens military composed. Text and melody were therefore two completely independent works that were created historically independently of one another and at completely different times. What connects them in the end is only the reference from Schacht in his song board . Probably even without Methfessel's knowledge, because there is no reference to Schacht's text in his work.
Another folk song melody was recorded in Windheim am Main in 1959 .
The song A proud ship , which has become very popular today due to the folk group Zupfgeigenhansel, can only be associated with the melody of Erich Schmeckenbecher , which has nothing to do with that of Methfessel. Zupfgeigenhansel discovered the incomplete, anonymous text in the German Folk Song Archive in Freiburg in the early 1970s . Under the text of the song was noted: "... by a sailor returning home in 1919 ..." The missing text passages were supplemented by them and set to music by tasting cups in the usual way today. The author of the text was unknown, as was Schacht's song board . Zupfgeigenhansel published the song on their album Volkslieder III and in their songbook Es want a farmer to get up early . The song became very popular with Zupfgeigenhansel over the years. In this new version, it brought the issue of “ emigration in the middle of the 1970s” back to people's consciousness and was later taken up by many colleagues ( Liederjan , Gerhard Gundermann , Paul Bartsch , Die Grenzgänger and others).
It was not until 1995 that the songwriter, collector and folk song researcher Jochen Wiegandt (founding member of the Liederjan group ) discovered the text, previously believed to be anonymous, with Heinrich Schacht as the author in an antiquarian book called Seemanns Liedertafel . This was published by him in his song book An de Eck steiht'n Jung mit'n Tüdelband with mainly Hamburg songs.
Text versions
Here is the text by Heinrich Schacht in the version from 1855:
"The German emigrants"
A proud ship pulls slowly through the waves,
Our German brothers are taking us away,
The flag is blowing, the white sails are swelling,
America is the destination;
Colorful rows stand on the roof
to dedicate farewell to the fatherland.
They move there, who dares to ask:
Why are they leaving their fatherland?
O Germany, Germany! can you endure
that your peoples are so banished?
Look here, you country fathers, see them move,
see your most beautiful workers flee.
We stand here on the beach at home
and look after our German brothers,
not arrogance drives them out of the fatherland,
no, lack of food and need and shame.
So they flee the land they born
and have chosen a distant grave.
There they move on wild waves of the sea,
they arrive poorly in the distant part of the world,
And under the strange, wide arc of heaven they
expect a new fate then.
O Germany, Germany, can you
watch without horror The escape of the poor country children?
Revised version from 1860:
"The German emigrants"
A proud ship sweeps lonely through the waves,
It takes us away our German brothers!
The flag flies, the white sails swell,
America is the destination.
Stand on the roof
to look again at
the fatherland, the native greenery,
man, woman and child, before they leave.
They move there, who dares to ask
why are they leaving their country?
Oh, old Germany, can you endure
your peoples being banished in this way?
Look here. You
happy people,
look here, you oppressors,
see your best workers flee,
see how they move across the great ocean.
We stand here on the beach at home
and look after our German brothers.
It is not arrogance that drives them from the fatherland,
no, lack of food and need and shame.
What could not be found here,
they want to justify there;
They sail off German soil
and look for a grave in America.
There they move on wild waves of the sea,
they arrive poor in the distant part of the world,
and under the strange, wide arc of the sky
a new fate awaits them:
misery, poverty and grief
often lulls them into slumber.
O old Germany, can you
watch the poor country children escape without horror?
Here is the text in the version by Zupfgeigenhansel :
“A proud ship”
A proud ship sweeps lonely through the waves
and takes us away from our German brothers.
The flag flies, the white sails swell -
America is their destination.
See them standing on the deck,
look around once more
into the fatherland, into the green of their home,
see how they move across the great ocean.
They pull it there on blue waves.
Why are they leaving their homeland?
They were badly cheated of their lives,
poverty drove them from their fatherland.
Look up, you oppressors,
look up, you deceivers!
See your best workers flee,
see how they migrate across the great ocean.
They are drawn there, who dares to ask them?
Why are they leaving their homeland?
O poor Germany, how can you bear it
that your brothers are banished like this:
what they hoped to found here, they
try to find over there.
So they withdraw from German soil
and find their grave in America. -
Further text version:
A proud ship sweeps lonely through the waves,
It takes our German brothers away!
The flag flies, the white sails swell,
America is the destination.
Stand on the roof
to look again at
the fatherland, the native greenery,
man, woman and child, before they leave.
They move there, who dares to ask
why are they leaving their country?
Oh, old Germany, can you endure
your peoples being banished in this way?
Look here. You
happy people,
look here, you oppressors,
see your best workers flee,
see how they move across the great ocean.
We stand here on the beach at home
and look after our German brothers.
It is not arrogance that drives them from the fatherland,
no, lack of food and need and shame.
What could not be found here,
they want to justify there;
They sail off German soil
and look for a grave in America.
There they move on wild waves of the sea,
they arrive poor in the distant part of the world,
and under the strange, wide arc of the sky
a new fate awaits them:
misery, poverty and grief
often lulls them into slumber.
O old Germany, can you
watch the poor country children escape without horror?
Here is the slightly modified version of the song from 1925.
“A proud ship sweeps slowly through the waves
And carries our German brothers away;
The east wind blows, the white sails swell
America is their destination.
To stand on the deck like that, to
look at home:
America, to distant colonies
Do you see them moving across the great oceans?
There they go! Who dares to ask
why are they leaving their homeland?
You poor Germany, can you bear it,
How your sons are banished so hard?
Look here, you people
happy , look here, you oppressors,
see your best workers flee!
Do you see them moving across the great ocean?
Then they
move towards the blue waves of the sea. What do they look back sadly?
Are you so badly betrayed at home?
That they are now looking for happiness in a foreign land?
What you could not find here,
look for a foundation there,
you sail off German soil here
and then find your grave in a foreign country. "
reception
The folklorist Lutz Röhrich finds Schacht's text somewhat “pathetic” and sums it up: “The expectations of the song are not very high. The tenor is: here in Germany it is already miserably bad; it can hardly get any worse over there. "
The song in the aftermath
Paul Bartsch , a songwriter from the new federal states, who took up the song by Zupfgeigenhansel, compares the wave of emigration of the 19th century, which is described in this song, with the current wave of emigration of young people in East Germany. He expressed this in a fourth stanza, in addition to Zupfgeigenhansel:
“The ship has disappeared behind the horizon,
the eyes overflow and the heart is heavy.
The pain of the hundred-year-old wounds
flares up again with this return:
Again the boys are drawn into the distance,
again the stars shine brightly over there
and again we only notice it when it is too late
that our home is going under in the end. "
Audio samples
Web links
- Text and melody by Albert Methfessel at volksliederarchiv.de, accessed on December 27, 2015
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Heinrich Schacht: Pictures from Hamburg's folk life. JF Richter, Hamburg 1855, p. 131 f. ( Full text in Google Book Search).
- ↑ Ekkehard Ochs, Peter Tenhaef, Walter Werbeck (eds.): Song and song idea in the Baltic Sea region between 1750 and 1900: Papers of the 8th international musicological conference "Musica Baltica - interregional music-cultural relations in the Baltic Sea region", Greifswald-Lubmin, November 1998. Lang , Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-631-36237-4 , p. 307 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
- ^ Andreas Fahl: The Hamburg Citizen Military, 1814-1868. D. Reimer, 1987, p. 158 ( limited preview in Google book search).
- ^ Paul Neumann: songs and sayings on Hamburg. Broschek, Hamburg 1942 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
- ^ A proud ship (1925) at volksliederarchiv.de
- ↑ a b Zupfgeigenhansel: Volkslieder III, 1978 ( Review ( Memento of the original from June 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. at volksliederarchiv.de)
- ↑ a b Thomas Friz, Erich Schmeckenbecher (ed.): A farmer wants to get up early. 222 folk songs. Plans, Dortmund 1978, ISBN 3-88569-001-2 , p. 284 f.
- ↑ a b Jochen Wiegandt: At the corner, a young man stands with a Tüdelband. Hamburger Liederbuch (= Jochen Wiegandts Liedertafel. Episode 1). 3. Edition. Dölling and Galitz, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-935549-13-X .
- ^ Helmut Glagla: Hamburg in the Low German Drehorgellied of the 19th century. Museum of Hamburg History, Hamburg 1974, DNB 740710877 .
- ↑ Louis Mosberg: Happy song. Craftsmen, hiking and Folk songs. Bielefeld 1925, quoted at volksliederarchiv.de .
- ^ Lutz Röhrich: The fate of emigrants in the song. In: Peter Assion (Ed.): The Great Awakening: Studies on emigration to America. (Hessische Blätter für Volks- und Kulturforschung, Volume 17) Jonas, Marburg 1985, ISBN 3-922561-45-4 , pp. 71-109 ( limited preview in the Google book search). Printed in: Lutz Röhrich: Collected writings on folk song and ballad research. Waxmann, Munster et al. 2002, ISBN 3-8309-1213-7 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ^ Paul Bartsch: A proud ship at MusicBrainz
