Schnapps, that was his last word
Schnaps, that was his last word, is the title of a carnival song from 1960, sung by the popular actor Willy Millowitsch .
History of origin
Willy Millowitsch was known nationwide for his Millowitsch theater and from film and television. Millowitsch also tried himself as a pop singer. With Ariola he received a record deal in 1960, his first title there was When this song becomes a hit (A 35 061). This was followed a few months later by his first title on alcohol, Today we are blue (A 35 262).
Record success
Then the professional team of authors Heino Gaze and Günther Schwenn wrote the title Schnaps, that was his last word / I'll hold on to the counter (Ariola 35 839 A). Millowitsch is accompanied by the Willy Hoffmann Orchestra. The song, produced by Millowitsch himself, reached number 5 on the German charts after its release in November 1960. The mood and carnival song, sung in High German, spread very quickly from January 1961 due to the ongoing carnival season and finally sold more than 900,000 copies. The track was even listed as # 4 by Billboard as the best-selling record.
It wasn't long before two church officials protested about the “profane and at the same time dangerous text”, while Ariola thought it was an innocent amusement and recalled that alcohol had finally been popularized by the monks in the form of beer in monasteries. In an open letter to the author Schwenn from March 1961, Dean Lic. Heinrich Seesemann and Pastor Karl Zeiß - the two parish priests of the Protestant Matthäusgemeinde in Frankfurt - criticized the text as "a corrosive work in which the Christian faith is made ridiculous". Heaven would be ridiculed and hell played down. If the last word of man is “schnapps”, then man is lost for ever.
The song was ranked 26th on the 1961 hit parade list . Schnapps, that was his last word , is still often played in carnival today, not just in the Rhineland. The song is one of the most successful mood songs of all time and is an evergreen . Friedel Hensch and the Cyprys covered the song in 1968, and since then it has appeared on numerous compilations as part of secondary exploitation , for example on Die Neue Große Stimmungs-Box .
The timing of the release was the model for future carnival songs in the record industry. They were usually published in November of each year and had the opportunity to gain acceptance from the audience in the carnival season from January of the following year - also through their performance during the carnival sessions.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Prisma Star Guide Willy Millowitsch
- ↑ Billboard Magazine of January 30, 1961, Best-Selling Pop-Records in Germany , p. 54
- ↑ Billboard Magazine of April 10, 1961, German Clerics Find "Schnaps" Not So Funny , p. 24
- ↑ Congregational letter from May 2011 of the Evangelical Church in Gedern, p. 27 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 3.8 MB)
