Up on the yellow car
A well-known German folk song is high on the yellow car . The text of the song is based on the poem “Der Wagen rolls”, written by Rudolf Baumbach (1840–1905) in the 1870s (first printed in 1878). The melody was only composed in 1922 by the Berlin pharmacist Heinz Höhne (1892–1968).
content
In the text, human life is described as a journey in a stagecoach . In the second line, “I sit in front of my brother-in-law”, the word “brother-in-law” refers to the postillon (from French chevalier “ post rider ”). The refrain "I would like / stay / I would like to be [...], / But the carriage that rolls", which closes each stanza in a slightly modified form , makes a reference to the flowing life, whose course cannot be stopped. The song can be understood as a nostalgic glimpse of “old times”, since when it was first created, the age of the stagecoach was already drawing to a close due to the expansion of the railway network .
reception
The song achieved enormous popularity after Walter Scheel , then Federal Foreign Minister , sang it on December 6, 1973 in the ZDF show Drei Mal Neun for charitable purposes. This version, published on Polydor , stayed in the German single charts for 15 weeks and reached position 5 on January 7, 1974.
Scheel used (omitting the fourth stanza that deals with death) a text version distributed by folk song books, which deviates from the original version in various details.
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Text (Walter Scheel 1973)
I'm sitting in front of my brother-in-law, high on the yellow car .
The horses trot forward,
the horn pounds merrily.
Fields, meadows and meadows,
shining ear gold -
I would really like to look,
but the car is rolling.
Postillon in the tavern
feeds the horses in flight.
The landlord gives me
frothy barley drink
in a jug.
Behind the window panes
a face laughs so sweetly.
I would really like to stay,
but the car is rolling.
I hear flutes and violins,
funny bass hum.
Young people in the dance
dance around the linden tree,
whirl like leaves in the wind,
cheer and laugh and frolic.
I loved staying with the linden tree,
but the cart that rolls.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The melody is still subject to copyright protection and will not be in the public domain until the end of 2038.
- ↑ Pankower Chronik dotde: Up on the yellow car
- ↑ Concise dictionary of the postal system . First addendum to the second edition. Bundesdruckerei, Bonn 1956, p. 165.
- ↑ Record 1973 ( YouTube )
