Jeanny
Jeanny is the title of a series of songs by the Austrian singer Falco , the first part of whichsparkedone of the greatest scandals in the history of German-language pop music .
The three tracks Jeanny (1985; from 1986 referred to as Jeanny (Part 1) ), Coming Home (Jeanny Part 2, one year later , 1986) and Bar Minor 7/11 (Jeanny Dry ) (1990). Without approval by Falco appeared posthumously versions Where Are You Now? (Jeanny Part III) (2000) and The Spirit Never Dies (Jeanny Final) (2009).
Jeanny
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Emergence
The text originally came from Rob & Ferdi Bolland , but was modified and supplemented by Falco. The music was also composed by the Bolland brothers. After hearing the demo version, Falco spoke out in favor of the music but against the text. The original version was about a girl who ran away after an argument with her boyfriend.
Jeanny was recorded and produced in the summer of 1985 in the Netherlands. The title first appeared in September of the same year on the album Falco 3 , and it was released as a single in December.
content
The ambiguous text consists of two German-language stanzas and a refrain sung in English. A version sung exclusively in English was first published in German-speaking countries on the compilation Greatest Hits II .
When Jeanny was released as a single, there were allegations that the title played down or glorified a rape , although the text did not explicitly mention violence. However, it strongly shows the perspective that a rapist might have towards his victim. The way in which the text is presented also allows the conclusion that it is a stalker who kidnaps his victim because of spurned love and kills him in his madness.
The Newsflash part of the song, spoken by the then Tagesschau news anchor Wilhelm Wieben , reports a "dramatic increase in the number of missing people" and "another tragic case" of a 19-year-old girl who had been missing for 14 days, where the police had the opportunity cannot rule out a crime.
Video
The accompanying video clip reinforces the impression that the protagonist, played by Falco, is a psychotic murderer. At the end he is shown in a straitjacket in a " padded cell ", where he is teased by a young woman portrayed by Theresa Guggenberger, then 15 years old. Although no alienation effects are used, the figure of the girl can be interpreted as the hallucination of a mentally ill murderer, because when a guard looks into the cell of the protagonist, he can be seen alone.
On the one hand, the video alludes to the Fritz Lang film M , published in 1931 , in which a serial killer is identified by a blind balloon seller and marked with an M drawn in chalk on the back of his coat ; In the video, the protagonist has a painted F on his back, and a blind balloon seller can also be seen. On the other hand, the canal subject from Carol Reed's film The Third Man (1948) with Orson Welles as Harry Lime is unmistakable in the opening sequences . In addition, the video alludes to the film Psycho several times : At the beginning you can briefly see the neon lettering “Bates Motel”, while the end of the video shows parallels to the end of the film.
The filming locations include the Vienna Opera Passage and part of the Vienna canal system in the Karlsplatz / Esperantopark area .
boycott
Various women's groups called for a boycott of the song. The North German Radio , the Radio Free Berlin and the Bayerische Rundfunk joined "ethical reasons" the boycott and will not play the song more other transmitters sent the song only in the charts . Jeanny was also no longer broadcast by GDR radio stations. On April 17, 1986, the Federal Testing Office for Writings Harmful to Young People rejected an application to index the song as "harmful to young people" .
The then ZDF news anchor Dieter Kronzucker was outraged and expressed this in the heute-journal . Other radio stations then joined the boycott. In Hesse the song was played with a warning comment. In the music show Formula One , however, as long as it was number one in the charts, at least part of it was shown every week. In a newspaper comment, Thomas Gottschalk called Falco a “Viennese sausage” that produced “nonsense”: “Falco's Fieselton and the latrine views of the video are simply too much to ask.” Falco said on the show Today with Joachim Fuchsberger : “I can Don't hold it against a former teacher if he can't tell the difference between a Wiener sausage and a Bockwurst. "
interpretation
The song plays, especially in connection with the video, with different scenarios of a (love) relationship and leaves the assessment to the listener or viewer. While the video initially portrays the girl Jeanny as harassed and persecuted, the story later takes a turn. Falco is then identified as a murderer when the supposedly dead Jeanny is just coming out of a restaurant. In the final scene, in which Falco is apparently imprisoned in an asylum in a straitjacket, Jeanny dances around him and mocks him.
“Jeanny is alive, that is clear from the text and the video. Part II of Jeanny will prove in the fall that the man is the real victim. It is not for nothing that he ends up in the nuthouse at the end, completely crushed by Jeanny, but more is not given away. "
music
The song Jeanny is performed by Falco in a spoken chant and accompanied by a melody. The pace of the song is slow, so is the rhythm of the song. This is significant for piano use in the individual stanzas. The drums are used more in the chorus, although this is not the case in the individual verses. In the background to the melody, connected keyboard chords can also be heard. Violins were also used for some live performances. Falco is supported vocally by a choir that appears in the chorus. The song is stylistically assigned to a rock-oriented pop ballad in the style of a love song.
Coming Home (Jeanny Part 2, one year later)
Already in release of Jeanny Falco said in an interview that the action could not be completed:
“ Jeanny is a love song. This is how it is designed and implemented. The part on the Falco 3 record ends deliberately at a point that triggers speculation in the listener and leaves a continuation open. "
Emergence
In the autumn of 1986 the title Coming Home (Jeanny Part 2, a year later) was released with the album Emotional . The text came from Rob & Ferdi Bolland and was supplemented and expanded in collaboration with Falco. The music was composed by the Bolland brothers; The song was recorded and produced in 1986 at Bullet Sound Studios in Nederhorst den Berg , Netherlands .
Content, music, video
The possible perspective on the first part is put into perspective, with reference to the public reactions to Jeanny (“[…] but it was love at first sight - nobody wanted to understand us. You and I against the world - you have condemned us, you condemned me. ”). Other passages of the text, however, show features of a love song.
Like the first Jeanny part, Coming Home is made up of two German-language stanzas, each followed by an English-language refrain. Musically, the song is more in the direction of ballads and pop music. The background choir from the first part can be heard as a fade-in ; after a double “Jeanny!” call, the actual music starts. The chorus after both stanzas ends with the use of a harmonica , which has similarities to the well-known melody from the western play me the song of death . The fade-out is determined by playing the guitar for more than half a minute.
The video for the song was partly shot in the Vienna Gasometer . Theresa Guggenberger again took on the female lead. Analogous to Jeanny there is also an allusion to the film Psycho ; towards the end of the song, a skeleton sitting on a chair is turned into the camera (in the film it is the murderer's mother, whose remains are discovered in this way). Some scenes in which the protagonist embodied by Falco is connected to measuring instruments, allow the interpretation that the action is only dreamed.
Coming Home was released as the second single from the album Emotional , the title Crime Time , also featured on this record, was on the B-side. Although Jeanny's commercial success could not be repeated, the title nevertheless reached the top of the charts in several European countries; in Germany and Sweden the title reached the top of the charts. This made Coming Home the last title with which Falco could land a number one hit.
Bar Minor 7/11 (Jeanny Dry)
Emergence
In 1990, in collaboration with Robert Ponger, the title Bar Minor 7/11 (Jeanny Dry) for Falco's sixth album Data de Groove was created . The text was by Falco, the music was composed by Robert Ponger and contains jazz influences. The song was recorded and produced in Vienna and Munich. With Bar Minor 7/11 (Jeanny Dry) , Falco tried to draw an objective line under the Jeanny hype. Due to the commercial failure of the album, however, the title was largely disregarded.
content
In the song, Falco is talking to a woman who works there in a bar , but her exact occupation remains unclear. Also, you only ever hear Falco himself talking, you don't hear the lady and her answers to Falco's questions; Whether the lady is real or just Falco's imagination remains open. One hears a backing singer with the words "Give it up!" Again and again. After various small talk , the song ends with the following words from Falco to the lady:
"Tell me, who actually told you that your name is Jeanny?"
"That was - surely it was the boss of my record company?"
“Well, I already understand. Say, is he a good guest? "
"Everything is clear as it always was: you back behind and I in front of the bar (claimable)."
The Spirit Never Dies (Jeanny Final)
For his fifth album, which was to be released in 1987 under the title Aya , Falco had recorded several titles together with the producer duo Gunther Mende / Candy DeRouge, who became known in German-speaking countries primarily through their work with Jennifer Rush . Among these was the planned third Jeanny part, with which the trilogy should be concluded. Text and music came from Mende and DeRouge, recording and production took place in Mendes recording studio in Mörfelden-Walldorf near Frankfurt. According to Falco's then manager Horst Bork, the finished tracks were rejected by the record company Teldec , with which the singer was under contract at the time. Production of the album was subsequently canceled, and in early 1988 Falco switched back to his former producers Rob and Ferdi Bolland . While some of the tracks recorded in the previous year were used on the album, now called Wiener Blut , the rest of the production with Mende and DeRouge was discarded and some of it was forgotten.
In November 2008, after a water pipe burst in the archive of Mendes Tonstudio, the old recordings from 1987 were found. During an examination of the tapes found, several previously unknown songs by Falco were discovered, including a track that Bork had used as the “official” third part of the Jeanny series. Since the recording was badly affected by the burst pipe, the song was completely revised in 2009 and released on December 4th of that year under the title The Spirit Never Dies (Jeanny Final) on the album The Spirit Never Dies .
Where Are You Now
Posthumously in 2000 with Where Are You Now? (Jeanny Part III) , another Jeanny -Titel published, but only as a free download at the Austrian Internet mail order lion.cc . A former band member Falcos is said to have anonymously leaked a music cassette with the title to the operator of the site . After a legal objection by the rights holder, the title had to be removed from the page, but by this time it had already spread on the Internet.
The song may have originated in 1988, when Falco returned to his successful Dutch producers Rob and Ferdi Bolland for the second attempt on his fifth album . The Bolland brothers wrote, composed and produced numerous new songs for Falco within a few weeks, including this title. Noteworthy here is the fact that part of Where Are You Now? consists of set pieces of the English Jeanny version. This could indicate that the song was produced by the Bollands largely without Falco's participation and very quickly. However, the quality of the finished piece was not convincing, so that it was not published at the time.
In an interview by Richard Pettauer with Falco's long-time friend and band leader Thomas Rabitsch (published at the same time as Where Are You Now? On lion.cc), he said that in his opinion the title was just an experiment by the Bollands and probably never shortlisted came for the album.
Bolland and Bolland presented Where Are You Now? on February 5, 2007 in a commemorative show on the ninth anniversary of Falco's death on the television station kabel eins .
Awards for music sales
| Country / Region | Award | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| Awards for music sales (country / region, Award, Sales) |
||
 Germany (BVMI)
|
 gold
|
250,000 |
 France (SNEP)
|
- | 91,000 |
 Netherlands (NVPI)
|
gold
|
75,000 |
| All in all |
2 × gold |
316,000 |
Main article: Falco / Discography # Awards for music sales
Cover versions etc.
The Jeanny trilogy, especially the first part, has been reinterpreted by many musicians or sampled for their own songs .
- 1986: Drahdiwaberl - Jeannie Part 13
- 1986: Frank Zander - Jeannie (The Pure Truth)
- 1986: Peter Orloff - … and who asks about Jeanny?
- 1996: I Troje - Jeanny
- 1998: The punishment - Jeanny
- 1999: Stahlhammer - Jeannie
- 2001: Reamonn featuring Xavier Naidoo - Jeanny
- 2001: Sara Noxx - Jeanny (Part 1)
- 2004: Mandaryna - Jeanny
- 2005: Snot on the meadow - Jeanny (Part I) and Coming Home
- 2005: Fettes Brot and Finkenauer - On days like these (sample)
- 2006: Fler - New Numma 1 (Sample)
- 2008: Extra 3 - Schily-Song (parody of the former German Interior Minister Otto Schily )
- 2009: JBO - Angie (Quit Living on Dreams) (allusion to Angela Merkel )
- 2009: Pappa Bear - Jeanny
- 2010: Hurts - Jeanny (remix with newly sung verses)
- 2011: Basstard - Jeannie
- 2018: Joachim Witt feat. MajorVoice - Jeanny
- 2018: Ali As x Falco - Jeanny
literature
- Michael Behrendt: The calculated misunderstanding. In: ders .: I don't like Mondays. The 66 biggest song misunderstandings. Darmstadt 2017. pp. 52–57.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH Charts UK Charts NL
- ↑ Lanz, Peter: Falco Die Biographie , Ueberreuter Verlag, Vienna, 2007, p. 176
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated September 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Falco Calling-Jeanny ( Memento of the original from May 10, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Wilder Wiener Wunderknabe ( Memento from December 22, 2003 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ http://www.bild.de/BILD/unterhaltung/musik/2009/11/15/falco/dritter-teil-von-jeanny-aufgetaucht.html
- ↑ Les Meilleures Ventes “Tout Temps” de 45 T. / Singles / Téléchargement ( Memento of March 7, 2020 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 8, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
