Are you the Count of Luxembourg?
| Are you the Count of Luxembourg? | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Dorthe | |
| publication | 1968 |
| length | 2:50 min. |
| Genre (s) | Bat |
| Author (s) |
Fred Weyrich , Henry Mayer |
| Label | Philips |
| Award (s) | Bronze lion |
| album | If only you had stayed in Düsseldorf |
Are you the Count of Luxembourg? is a song by the Danish singer Dorthe from 1968. It was written by Fred Weyrich and Henry Mayer , was the artist's first top 10 chart success and remained her biggest chart success. It is about a woman who is looking for the "Count of Luxembourg" from the operetta of the same name by Franz Léhar .
Background and publication
The music and lyrics for Are you the Count of Luxembourg? come from Fred Weyrich and Henry Mayer. The single was released by Philips ; the B-side was what is merely the Torero going on ?, a cover version of the English title, What's the Matter with the hero of Bill Martin and Phil Coulter , in 1967 by the band The Immigrants as a B-side of their single My Runabout had been published .
- Are you the Count of Luxembourg? - 4:50
- What's the matter with the torero? - 4:44
The song also appeared on Dorfe's album Would you have stayed in Düsseldorf , which was also released in 1968.
Music and lyrics
music
Are you the Count of Luxembourg? is a foxtrot at a rate of 188 quarter notes per minute . The piece in E flat major begins and ends with an orchestral section in the style of a fanfare with wind , string instruments and timpani , which is also repeated as an interlude after the refrain. The piece is arranged quite lavishly with drums, wind instruments and strings and is played by the Arno Flor orchestra . Before the last verse , the music moves a semitone higher. The song ends with the familiar fanfare after the last chorus.
text
The text of the hit is about a woman who travels to Luxembourg to find the "Count of Luxembourg", who she is familiar with from the operetta of the same name by Franz Léhar . She speaks to strange men on the street and asks them if they are the said count, which they deny. In the third - last - stanza, the mistake that one could find the person wanted in "this small country" is cleared up by one of the addressees: The operetta character would be more likely to be found in Paris, but was long dead.
The chorus of the hit is repeated often and catchy:
“Oh pardon, are you the Count of Luxembourg?
Oh pardon, are you the great man of the world? "
resonance
Charts and chart placements
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Chart positions Explanation of the data |
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Are you the Count of Luxembourg? entered the German single charts for the first time on March 1, 1968 , where it was placed for a total of four months, with the song recording its highest score at number five. In Austria , the single hit the charts for the first time on April 15, 1968 and, with seventh place as the highest position, also made it into the top 10. Are you the Count of Luxembourg? three months in the Austrian single charts.
Dorthe thus reached the German single charts for the sixth time, it became their first top 10 hit and replaced the most successful hit to date, Dip-Di-Dip , which at the time achieved its highest rating at rank 17. In Austria she reached the single charts for the first time. In both countries none of Dorthe's single was able to place higher or longer in the sales parade, making it their most successful chart single in both countries. She was also awarded the Bronze Lion by Radio Luxemburg .
The follow-up single Would you have stayed in Düsseldorf was able to assert itself at number 10 in the charts in August of the same year and in December of that year, Every Schotte was the only other single to make it into the Austrian charts.
reception
The situation and text of the title are rated as rather plain. The literary critic Rainer Moritz counts the "heroine", who speaks to several suspicious men on the street, "one of the stupidest heroines of the hit", but also admitted that "sometimes [...] sheer nonsense may be uttered".
Axel Hacke names the hit in his third “handbook of interrogation”, Wumbaba's legacy , as a candidate for the typical “interrogator”. Instead of "Oh pardon" you often hear:
"Grandpa Dong, are you the Count of Luxembourg"
The original plot of the hit is - according to Hacke - already "stupid", but it only becomes really "beautifully stupid" if you take everyone on the street to be "Grandpa Dong".
In a selection of satirical "election campaign hits for the CDU" in 1969 the news magazine Der Spiegel rhymed with the melody of the hit:
"Oh pardon
you are the man of the FDP
o pardon
how it hurts to cut your hair.
o pardon
because it was about your own heads
o pardon a
pair of scissors is a sharp thing.
Yes, where is the braid
of your head,
o Scheel you poor drip. "
The song or the line of the chorus has appeared in various contexts - for example literary, journalistic or in sports - until recently as a quote. Several linguistic textbooks use it in variations as an example for different sentence types . An exhibition by the Luxembourg artist Antoine Prum in 2001 was also entitled O Pardon, are you the Count of Luxembourg?
Cover versions
Are you the Count of Luxembourg? was translated and covered in isolated cases. The first cover versions appeared in the same year and in the following year by well-known dance orchestras such as the orchestras of James Last and Joe Dexter . The Travelers published a parody with a Saxon tongue in 1968 under the title O pardon, you are the Prince of Liechtenstein (as the B-side of the single Meine Olle reads den Kolle )
Dorthe himself sang the song as Er de greven fra Luxembourg? in Danish that same year. The singer Ann Christine also released the Finnish version in 1968 under the title Anteeks vaan , others followed with Min greve av Luxemburg in Swedish by Ann-Louise Hanson and Oh pardon meneer, bent u van de tv? in Dutch by Yvonne.
Others
On the occasion of the demonstrations against the SPD and their approval of the emergency laws at the party congress in Nuremberg in 1968, the police under the then Police President Horst Herold tried to smooth things over by sounding the protesters with pop music. It was rumored that the record player was failing as if you were the Count of Luxembourg? should be played.
supporting documents
- ↑ Dorthe - Are you the Count of Luxembourg at Discogs ; accessed on November 17, 2020.
- ↑ Dorthe - If only you had stayed at Discogs in Düsseldorf ; accessed on November 17, 2020.
- ↑ Notenbuch.de: Notenbuch.de - Music and More - Notes & Downloads. Retrieved November 19, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Dorthe - Are you the Count of Luxembourg? officialcharts.de, accessed on November 17, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Dorthe - Are you the Count of Luxembourg? austriancharts.at, accessed on November 17, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c Dorthe - Are you the Count of Luxembourg? chartsurfer.de, accessed on November 17, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Dorthe. chartsurfer.de, accessed on November 18, 2020 .
- ↑ Rainer Moritz: Schlager (= Dtv Small Philosophy of Passions . No. 20362 ). Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 978-3-423-20362-3 , pp. 70 .
- ↑ Axel Hacke, Michael Sowa: Wumbaba's Legacy Third Handbook of Interrogation . Antje Kunstmann, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-88897-613-1 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
- ↑ https://magazin.spiegel.de/EpubDelivery/spiegel/pdf/45547974
- ^ Brigitte Kronauer : Schnurrer: Stories . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-608-95852-5 , p. 57 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- ^ Rudolf F. Thomas : Morgenlatten The Companions of Maturity . Hamburg, ISBN 978-3-7482-2698-7 ( limited preview in Google book search).
- ↑ Jan Stressenreuter : Love to love you, baby: Roman . 1st edition Querverlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89656-073-5 .
- ↑ Günther Willen: Level is not a skin cream Neat sayings for all situations . Ullstein-Taschenbuch-Verlag / Ullstein eBooks, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-548-92112-9 ( limited preview in Google book search).
- ↑ Wedding: Oh, sorry, are you the Count of Luxembourg? In: EuroNews - German version . 20th October 2012.
- ↑ Fanny Ludig: Saibene is the "Count of Luxembourg". In: tageblatt.lu. May 22, 2017, accessed November 17, 2020 .
- ↑ Hubert Truckenbrodt: Independent verb last sentences . In: Jörg Meibauer, Markus Steinbach, Hans Altmann (Hrsg.): Satztypen des Deutschen . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-022483-2 , p. 234 , doi : 10.1515 / 9783110224832.232 .
- ^ Wilhelm Oppenrieder: Independent verb-last-sentences: their place in the sentence mode system and their intonational identification . In: Hans Altmann, Anton Batliner, Wilhelm Oppenrieder (eds.): On the intonation of mode and focus in German . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1989, ISBN 978-3-11-165838-4 , pp. 186 , doi : 10.1515 / 9783111658384.163 .
- ↑ Kerstin Rottmann: A dwarf state you can touch! In: THE WORLD . March 4, 2001 ( welt.de [accessed November 17, 2020]).
- ↑ WOLFGANG MÜLLER: books for marginalized groups: What is actually going on in Luxembourg? In: The daily newspaper: taz . June 5, 2001, ISSN 0931-9085 , p. 15 ( taz.de [accessed November 17, 2020]).
- ↑ a b Dorthe - Are you the Count of Luxembourg? , Cover versions on cover.info; accessed on November 17, 2020.
- ↑ The Travelers - Are you the Prince of Liechtenstein. Retrieved November 17, 2020 .
- ↑ Martin Held: SPD party conference 1968: At the beginning there were tumults; opponents of the emergency laws harassed Willy Brandt and Herbert Wehner - the police wanted to dampen emotions with pop music . In: Nürnberger Nachrichten, edition HA . 17th March 2018.
- ^ Walter Bauer: News from the Province 1968: the APO in Nuremberg: Texts of the APO Press and press releases from and about the APO in Nuremberg . Libresso, Nuremberg 1998, ISBN 3-930707-06-3 , p. 22 .