Homesickness (song)

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Homesick is the title of a hit published by Freddy Quinn in 1956 . He developed into a million seller . Heimweh was based on Dean Martin's hit Memories Are Made of This as the cover version .

History of origin

The shellac record of Freddy Quinn's "Heimweh" pressed in 1956 in a company perforated cover

German hits at that time often dealt with wanderlust and wanderlust, so that the German text for Memories Are Made of This by Dean Martin (published in November 1955) by Dieter Rasch and Ernst Bader already showed potential for success in terms of content for this fashion wave. Only the melody came from the original, because the German text has nothing in common with the original text.

On February 22, 1956 at 10 a.m., her name was initially Mary-Ann and then Heimweh (There where the flowers bloom) was recorded in the Great Hall of the Hamburg Music Hall with the Horst-Wende dance soloists . Freddy Quinn stepped in at short notice to replace René Carol in the studio because he was not available at the moment. Quinn had started his apprenticeship at Polydor with a contract dated November 7, 1954 and, according to the title fee contract dated March 1956, received a flat rate of 250 marks per record side - regardless of sales success. The producer Sigrid Volkmann, together with production manager Kurt Richter, determined the title. Her name was Mary-Ann (cover of Sixteen Tons , German text by Peter Moesser ) as the A-side of the record (Polydor H 50181 A) in order to participate in the success of the competition .

In 1957 the song was selected for the Austrian Heimatfilm Heimweh ... there, where the flowers bloom . The song plays a central role in the film - which featured Rudolf Prack prominently - and gave the film its name as the title song.

Sales success

After the introduction of vinyl records, a single from 1958 was released

After its publication in June 1956, nothing happened at first, as the radio stations largely ignored the A-side. Günter Ilgner , Sales Manager for Polydor Records in Hanover, had the entire first edition of 20,000 shellac records in stock weeks after the release date. It only found its audience when the Bayerischer Rundfunk played the record at good airtime. Then the piece reached the German charts in May 1956 , where it took first place in June 1956 for five months (21 weeks). In addition to All Paris Dreams of Love ( Caterina Valente ), Homesickness is still the record holder for the longest length of stay at the top of Germany's number one hits . It had sold over three million times by the end of 1958, received two gold records for this and was even sold eight million times worldwide over the years. This made the German version the most successful hit in Germany for a long time and even exceeded the sales of the original.

Freddy as a stage name

The publication had to be done in a hurry, so that there was an incorrect transfer of the artist information on the record label from Hamburg to Hanover. The Hanoverian factory manager Dr. Hans-Werner Steinhausen (Polydor Int.) Did not know the spelling of Freddy's artist surname “Quinn”, and so the equally uncertain Kurt Richter in Hamburg decided that “Freddy” should suffice as an indication. This mistake has ultimately ensured to this day that Freddy appeared as the artist's name on the record labels.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Catherine C. Fraser / Dirk O. Hoffmann, Pop Culture Germany: Media, Arts And Lifestile , 2006, p. 262.
  2. Electrola had brought out the Ralf Bendix version of her was called Mary-Ann in May 1956 and was able to achieve second place in the charts.
  3. a b c Bettina Greve: Sternenhimmel: Polydor - The Chronicle of a German Record Brand , 2001, p. 83ff.
  4. Eugen Kogon and Walter Dirks (eds.): Frankfurter Hefte, Neue Verlagsgesellschaft der Frankfurter Hefte , 1962, p. 196