No, I will not give my sons

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No, I will not give my sons
Reinhard Mey
publication 1986
Genre (s) Chanson , Schlager
Author (s) Reinhard Mey
Label Intercord
album Go it alone

No, my sons born I not a pacifist song of the German songwriter Reinhard Mey from 1986. He released the song on his solo album single-handedly as well as single and played it in the following years several times for live albums. The song deals with the subject of conscientious objection and also with the escape from war . In 2020 Reinhard Mey and several other musicians published a new version of the song to support the work of the Friedensdorf International organizationwho cares for sick and injured children from war zones.

Text and music

Reinhard Mey, 2014

No, I won't give my sons is a calmly performed ballad , which is accompanied in the original version by Reinhard Mey on the acoustic guitar and partly by an electronic piano and in the third verse by a drum with a suggested marching rhythm . The song begins with a short guitar and piano sequence and played in 4/4 time.

The text of No, I will not give my sons is made up of six stanzas , each ending with the refrain text “No, I will not give my sons”. From Mey's real perspective as the father of two sons, he chose the form of an open letter to an addressee who was not specifically identified by name. Conceivable would be the district military replacement office or the Ministry of Defense (“I'd better write you in good time”). The singer describes how he raised, protected and cared for his two sons and raised them "to respect life". He emphasizes that he will do everything possible to ensure that they “do not carry weapons ” and that they will not go to war:

"No goal and no honor, no duty,
are worth killing and dying for."

In the first half of the third verse the musical accompaniment changes: in the background a drum plays a gloomy marching rhythm, while the guitar accompaniment is reduced.

"They won't march in rank and file, wo
n't hold out, won't fight to the last,
freeze to death in a godforsaken field
while you sit on soft pillows."

- Reinhard Mey

In the last two stanzas he emphasizes that he will teach his sons "disobedience [...], resistance and inflexibility", "to stand up to none but oneself". He would rather flee with them than make them servants to the authorities. He prefers a life abroad, "a life like thieves in the night", rather than giving the life of his sons for "the madness" of the rulers.

background

Unlike his fellow singer-songwriters Degenhardt and Wader , Reinhard Mey was never involved in party politics. During the time of the 1968 movement , he was exposed to harsh criticism from the left, and his texts were considered by many to be too apolitical. One author mentions “prototypical” peace songs such as sales representatives (1970) and When is Peace (1990) in Mey's repertoire, but does not recognize any texts that could be classified as peace songs in the discourse of the new peace movement between the mid-1970s and 1990s. Socially critical texts, however, were found very early in Reinhard Mey's work, often from an emotional or personal, only implicitly political perspective - with which he "the long-standing consensus that the 'political song' and the 'private song' would be mutually exclusive." , break through (see also first person politics ). At least since the 1980s, Mey's texts have often been explicitly pacifist , for example in All Soldiers Want to Go Home (1990), Die Waffen Nieder (2004) or Kai (2007).

No, I do not give my sons to that extent, classifies himself twice in Mey's works: temporally, on the one hand, in a series of highly personal songs from his still young perspective as a father (Menschenjunges [1977], No Quiet Minute [1979]), on the other hand thematically in his socially critical and pacifist texts.

Publications and Achievements

Label of the single No, I won't give my sons , 1986

Reinhard Mey released No, I don't give my sons in 1986 on his album Alleingang and in the following year 1987 as a single together with the song Asche und Glut . The album was able to place itself in the German album charts and rose to number 27, in total it stayed in the charts for 12 weeks. The single was not a chart hit. In addition, Reinhard Mey published the song on several live albums, starting with Die Große Tournee '86 via Mit Lust und Liebe - Concerts '90 / 91 to ! I can from his Nanga Parbat tour from 2005 to 2006. The song was also released on several compilation albums with hits by Reinhard Mey, including Mein Apfelbäumchen in 1989. In 1996 it was awarded the SWF song prize.

Cover versions

In 2016 the album More Than Just a Little Peace by the Austrian singer Angelika Sacher was released together with the pianist Klaus Bergmaier, on which she sang the song alongside other anti-war songs.

Reinhard Mey and friends

In September 2020 Reinhard Mey released a music video with several artists as “Reinhard Mey and Friends” in which they interpreted the song No, I don't give my sons together. The video was created as a charity campaign to support the work of Friedensdorf International , which cares for sick and injured children from war zones. In addition to Reinhard Mey, Moira Serfling, singer of the Hamburg pop duo Nervling , Silke Meyer, the former violinist with Subway to Sally and now with Sidetrack , as well as Eric Fish , the singer of Subway to Sally, and Ally Storch, who are involved here playing the violin . Then there are Holly Loose, lead singer of the band last instance , Katja Moslehner, former singer of the band Faun , Eric Burton, Andreas Stitz and his band Leichtmatrose , Daniel Schulz, singer of the rock band Unzucht , Esther Jung, Seraphina Kalze, B. Interpretation, Joachim Witt and Luci Van Org . Unlike the calm original, this version contains a rock-heavy passage in the fifth, penultimate verse with a distorted electric guitar and energetic vocals by Luci Van Org and Andreas Stitz. Then Mey sings the last verse himself, with which the song ends calmly.

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c No, I don't give my sons , notes and text on reinhard-mey.de; accessed on October 2, 2020.
  2. ↑ Artur R. Boelderl, Ursula Esterl, Nicola Mitterer: poetry of resistance: A hard font for Werner Wintersteiner . StudienVerlag, 2020, ISBN 978-3-7065-6050-4 ( google.de [accessed October 30, 2020]).
  3. ↑ Marc Sygalski: 4.3. How Orpheus sing: Reinhard Mey . In: Seminar for German Philology at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (ed.): The "political song" in the Federal Republic of Germany between 1964 and 1989 using the example of Franz Josef Degenhardt, Hannes Wader and Reinhard Mey (=  eScripta. Göttinger Schriftenreihe für student German studies. ). 2011, ISSN  2192-0559 , p. 36-48 .
  4. ↑ Marc Sygalski: 3.2.3. "Implosion" of the Burg Waldeck Festival (1968 and 1969) . In: Seminar for German Philology at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (ed.): The "political song" in the Federal Republic of Germany between 1964 and 1989 using the example of Franz Josef Degenhardt, Hannes Wader and Reinhard Mey (=  eScripta. Göttinger Schriftenreihe für student German studies. ). 2011, ISSN  2192-0559 , p. 113-119 .
  5. ↑ Kersten Sven Roth: The political songwriter song before, during and after 1968 - for modeling dynamic text-type-discourse relations . In: Language and Knowledge (1968) . DE GRUYTER, Berlin, Boston 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-025472-3 , pp. 190–191 , doi : 10.1515 / 9783110254723.163 ( degruyter.com [accessed October 3, 2020]).
  6. ↑ a b Marc Sygalski: 4.3.2. No, my sons born ' I do not - that private in politics . In: Seminar for German Philology at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (ed.): The "political song" in the Federal Republic of Germany between 1964 and 1989 using the example of Franz Josef Degenhardt, Hannes Wader and Reinhard Mey (=  eScripta. Göttinger Schriftenreihe für student German studies. ). 2011, ISSN  2192-0559 , p. 120-122 ( gwdg.de [PDF]).
  7. ↑ Reinhard Mey - Going it alone at Discogs ; accessed on August 12, 2020.
  8. ↑ Reinhard Mey - No, I don't give my sons to Discogs ; accessed on August 12, 2020.
  9. ↑ Reinhard Mey - Die Große Tournee '86 at Discogs ; accessed on August 12, 2020.
  10. ↑ Reinhard Mey - With Lust And Love - Concerts 90/91 at Discogs ; accessed on August 12, 2020.
  11. ↑ Reinhard Mey - ! I can at Discogs ; accessed on August 12, 2020.
  12. ↑ Reinhard Mey - Mein Apfelbäumchen at Discogs ; accessed on August 12, 2020.
  13. ↑ Chronicle of the ARD | SWF song award to Reinhard Mey. Retrieved October 3, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Reinhard Mey & Friends: No, I don't give my sons songs and background information on Friedensdorf.de, accessed on October 29, 2020
  15. ↑ Reinhard Mey and friends - No, I won't give my sons , music video on Reinhard Mey's official channel; accessed on October 1, 2020.