Knef (album)
| KNEF | ||||
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| Studio album by Hildegard Knef | ||||
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Publication |
February 1970 (LP) / 2005 (CD) |
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admission |
December 9-12, 1969 |
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| Label (s) | LP: Decca ( Teldec ) CD: Warner Music Group |
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Format (s) |
LP, CD |
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Title (number) |
12 |
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running time |
39:28 (CD) |
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Studio (s) |
Teldec Studios, Berlin-Lichterfelde |
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KNEF is a German-language music album by the actress, singer and author Hildegard Knef . The lyrics of the twelve included chansons come from the interpreter herself. The composer, arranger and conductor of the studio production was Hans Hammerschmid . The album was released in February 1970 as a long-playing record on Teldec's Decca label . In the same year, the title Change of scenery , which became the best known on the album, was released as a single (B-side: How many people were happy (that you lived?) ). The full album was first re-released on CD in 2005 .
Emergence
The Austrian composer Hans Hammerschmid has been arranging most of Hildegard Knef's recordings since 1967. The Hammerschmid and Knef writing team has already produced successful titles such as For me it should rain red roses and From now on it went downhill (both 1968).
After Halt mich fest (1967) and Dreams are called you (1968), KNEF was the artist's third album for which Hammerschmid took over the musical direction. The singer was accompanied by the Kurt Edelhagen orchestra on the live album knef concert (1968), also arranged by Hammerschmid . Hammerschmid's arrangements were initially mainly influenced by French chanson and jazz . With the album KNEF , the team of authors wanted to “do something new. [...] Schlager, that was out of the question for us, that would have been too flat. So we tried to record something of the other things that were in the air at the time ” (Hans Hammerschmid in the accompanying text of the CD KNEF , 2005). In addition to just a few classical chansons, most of the twelve titles were created under the influence of popular music at the time , such as jazz, beat and folk .
The recordings took place from December 9th to 12th, 1969 in the Teldec-Studios (today Teldex Studio ) in Berlin-Lichterfelde. The album was produced by the British actor David Cameron , who was married to Hildegard Knef from 1962 to 1976. Together with Hans Hammerschmid he worked as the choir of the song Change of scenery .
Music and content of the title
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The first title How many people were happy that you lived? begins with the unusual use of an electric guitar and psychedelic beat music, and finally, traditional melodies that are carried by oboe and piano , among others, also sound . The answer to the eponymous question is given in the lyrics of the song with startling words ("and grief makes you mute because you don't know").
For swordfish is a traditional waltz that at Knef hit that makes two One plus one (Music: Charly Niessen ) from 1963 recalled. In terms of content, various animals are told that are plagued by their typical peculiarities ("It makes life difficult for the swordfish that he hangs on the sword"). The last stanza is about people who are “plagued by the constant question of a deeper meaning”. This is in vain, however, because people “are not told anything because they ask the wrong thing”.
The folkloric song I need a change of scenery is shaped by the sounds of an acoustic guitar . The text tells the fable of a birch that breaks out of its familiar surroundings (“I need a change of scenery, said the birch, and sets off at dusk”) and ultimately fails because it is felled (“and as a chest of drawers she still thought, how beautiful it was in the birch grove ”).
The melancholy lines of the chanson Insel Meine Angst (“When the force ebbed, the fear flooded me”) was combined with an elegant melody, carried by an acoustic guitar and a string orchestra . Elvira O. is a tribute to the popular music of the Roaring Twenties . Knef sings the ironic "Lament of Elvira O., in the year two thousand and fifty or so" with an alienated gramophone voice. This mourns the past, in which it was "still perishable" and "a nuisance". Your trade is "endangered because everyone acts as if he knew about my branch".
Friedenskampf und Schadenfreude is an epically arranged track reminiscent of the work of the American composer Jimmy Webb . Although it is the longest track of the album, the text consists only of three short verses that on the contradictory meaning of the terms struggle for peace and gloating point ( "You called the contest and forward peace, I feel joy and malicious 'granted') . The arrangement of love at the hundredth sight , on the other hand, arose audibly under the influence of the composer Burt Bacharach . The text is again ironic and pointed ("and after Mark Aurel's banquet we went to bed straight away. It was love at the hundredth sight ...").
The piece Mein Zeitbegriff is impressively supported by the interventions of a choir (Rosy Singer) and an oboe. In it Knef describes the view of the world through the eyes of an infant ("My concept of time is not yours, you say I am almost a year now"). In the text, the artist exercised social criticism (“the joys you think are without joy, you speak of happiness, the happiness you do not know”). The day takes a breath is the most traditional chanson on the album. Hildegard Knef, accompanied only by a piano, describes the oppressive atmosphere in the morning (“The day takes in air and cracks with the joints, the forest of antennae sticks to the horizon”).
The title on the 80th floor is dominated by psychedelic arrangements. The minimalist text, consisting of two quatrains , is about a girl who will be “on the 80th floor, in the house that doesn't exist, in the city that doesn't exist”. There it will wait for "the man" and ask: "When, finally when, will he be there?" The television presenter and music journalist Götz Alsmann described the title in 1997 as “Hildegard Knef's attempt to recreate hippie drug poetry”. The arrangement of The Lords of this World was also provided with psychedelic elements . In the text, Knef drafted a gloomy scenario of the end of the world (“When the river bed dried up, children looked for the bank”).
The album closes with the song Eisblumen , which is again based on folk music. Knef sings atmospherically of vague childhood memories, of the "fear of the man on cigar posters" or of the "night in which the big city burned, splintered red on the curtain edge ...". The record ends with the sentence “In the cotton wool of his inability man lives limited. I, you, he, she, meant well, always meant well. Someone meant well, always meant well ”. This was followed by the words “last groove, last groove, last groove…” on the long-playing record as an endless groove .
Publications
LP and single
In February 1970 the long-playing record came on the Decca label (order number: SLK 16633-P) from TELDEC "Telefunken-Decca" Schallplatten GmbH . In the same year the single Change of scenery / How many people were happy (that you lived?) Was released (Decca D 29 041).
Neither the long-playing record nor the single were listed in the charts of the time. In the long term, however, the album achieved a certain respectable success and achieved cult status both among admirers of the artist and in the club scene of the 1990s and 2000s . Hildegard Knef subsequently described the album as her "best" .
CD
In addition to the well-known Chanson Change of scenery , initially only the titles The Lords of this World and On the 80th Floor were available in the original version on CD on some compilations . In 2005 the entire album was remastered and released on CD by the Warner Music Group (order number: 5051011-1483-2-3).
Recitations, live and new recordings
In the television production Ich need 'Tapetenwechsel , which was broadcast on ZDF on October 28, 1971 , Hildegard Knef also presented the plays How many people were happy that you lived? as well as older and current tracks from your album. What is this actually about? (1971; Decca). The following year, the book I need change of scenery was published , which contained 70 poems, short stories and lyrics by Hildegard Knef from the years 1965 to 1972. On the album texts, written and read: Hildegard Knef (1972; Philips) were recitations of the texts Der Tag holt Luft and The Lords of this World included.
The album Tournee, Tournee ... - The live album of their concert tour (1980; Philips), arrangements and musical direction: Kai Rautenberg , contained live versions of The Lords of this World , Swordfish and I need a change of scenery . Concert recordings from 1986 of the same three tracks and also under the direction of Rautenberg were on the album Concert - Your Greatest Successes (1988; Sonia).
In 1995 the maxi-CD From now on it went downhill / The men of this world (Transformer Records) was released. It was a collaboration between Knef and the Engel Wider Willen group. The trumpeter Till Brönner arranged the new recording of the title Im 80th Floor on the album 17 millimeters (1999; Warner) . On the same sound carrier, which reached number 73 in the charts in Germany, the content was strongly indicated. How many people were happy that you lived? remembering song Who was happy that you existed (music: Till Brönner, text: Hildegard Knef, Heinz Rudolf Kunze ). In 2001 Brönner also edited the title Ich need 'Tapetenwechsel neu, which appeared on the CD but it was nice it was (2002; Warner).
Cover versions
Some of the tracks on the album appeared in cover versions by other artists, including reinterpretations by Lee Buddah (on the 80th floor ), dieFendel ( The Lords of This World , Change of Scenery ), Dorit Gäbler ( Change of scenery ), Justus Köhncke ( How many people were happy that you lived? ), Wencke Myhre ( change of scenery ) and nylon (on the 80th floor ). For their title Men on the album Auf Eine Auge blöd (1995; Alternatio), the hip-hop group Fettes Brot used a sample from the chanson Insel Meine Angst . For the film Hilde (2009) the actress Heike Makatsch took the titles Change of scenery and How many people were happy that you lived? with the WDR Big Band . The soundtrack was released on CD at the same time as the cinema release (2009; Warner). The German musician Tristan Brusch released the Knef song "Mein Zeitbegriff" in a musically reduced form with a new melody on his first German-language EP "Fisch" in 2015.
Web links
- Description of the LP in the authorized Hildegard Knef database (with lyrics)
- KNEF at Discogs (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Matthias Künnecke: Text accompanying the CD Knef . Warner Music. 2005.
- ↑ Götz Alsmann: Text accompanying the CD get easy! Vol. 4 - The German Pop Collection . Motor Music . 1997.
- ↑ Discography Hildegard Knef - albums as LP: 1970 (part 1) . As of November 8, 2010.
- ↑ Hildegard Knef - filmography . As of November 8, 2010.
- ↑ Hildegard Knef: I need a change of scenery. Molden publishing house. Vienna, Munich, Zurich 1972. ISBN 3217004574 .
- ↑ Information on http://shake-baby-shake.blogspot.com . As of November 10, 2010
- ↑ To the transcription of the cover version by Tristan Brusch on Genius.com