All of Vienna

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All of Vienna
Falco / Drahdiwaberl
publication 1981
length 5:06
Genre (s) pop
Author (s) Falco
Label GIG Records
album Psychological terror / solitary confinement

All of Vienna (... is on heroin today) is a song written and sung by the Austrian musician Falco in 1980, with which he laid the foundation for his solo career. The lyrics deal with the then booming hard drug scene in Vienna and in Club U4 as well as the destructive effects of drug use .

Falco first sang it during breaks with his group Drahdiwaberl , where it became a success, and it was first released on the band album in 1981, but censored on the radio. The English version published as That Scene in 1981 was his first single (4:22 minutes / instrumental 2:32 minutes) as a solo artist and hit the radio charts. On his 1982 debut album, Einzelhaft , the German version appeared again, and from then on he often sang live.

background

The bassist Hans Hölzel was with the Hallucination Company from 1977 to the beginning of 1979 , where he adopted his stage name and styling. The tour success of this group at that time inspired Stefan Weber to re-form his Viennese anarcho band Drahdiwaberl and in 1978 invited Falco to play along. Shortly after leaving the Hallucination Company, Falco joined the Spinning Wheel commercial group, which is closely linked to Drahdiwaberl, where he began to really sing for the first time and thereby began to develop his own style. In May 1979 he played his first single, consisting of the titles Chance to Dance and Summer , in a recording studio , but did not release it. This early work was not published until the end of 2007 as part of an advertising campaign for Vienna's shopping streets in the form of an advertising CD (under the name FALCOs 1. ).

The mocking song was created as a reaction to experiences with the tough drug scene in Vienna, which was then booming. One day in 1980, Falco came to a rehearsal of Drahdiwaberl with the number he had composed and written. Since it did not fit into the band's repertoire, it served as a filler between the orgiastic performances. Falco went to the edge of the stage with his bass guitar and Stefan Weber took a back seat. The number became an independent hit and a cult hit of the new wave scene in Vienna, and Falco experienced for the first time being cheered by the audience.

At that time Markus Spiegel , at that time owner of the Viennese label GiG Records , attended a concert, which resulted in a recording contract for the band and one for Falco. “When I saw Falco for the first time with his number Ganz Wien at a Drahdiwaberl concert in Vienna's Sophiensaele , it was clear to me that I wanted to sign him as a solo artist. Falco left a tremendously charismatic impression on me. "( Markus Spiegel )

The band's studio album Psychoterror was first released in 1981 , on which the title is included (duration: 5:06). This rose on August 1, 1981 with the highest position 8 in the album charts and lasted 8 weeks until September 15. "Drahdiwaberl & Falco" or "Drahdiwaberl with Falco" often appears as the interpreter on later samplers. Because of the drug issue, the radio put the song on its index and did not play it on Ö3 .

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
All of Vienna
  AT 72 03.03.2017 (1 week)

In September of the same year, the English version That Scene (Ganz Wien) was released as a single (duration: 4:22) with an instrumental version on the reverse (duration: 2:32) and Falco as the specified solo artist. This rose on September 20, 1981 with the highest placement 11 in the mixed sales and listener charts of the Ö3 hit parade and lasted six weeks, during which time the ranking was expanded from 15 to 20 places. The English version appeared on the albums Austropop Kult (2004) and Einzelhaft 25th Anniversary Edition (2007). The track length of the remastered version is 4:30 minutes.

Markus Spiegel brought Falco together with the music producer and sound mixer Robert Ponger, who had composed a song for Reinhold Bilgeri in the summer of 1981 , but he didn't like it. In contrast to Falco, who wrote a text about it.

With the Austrian number one hit Der Kommissar , published in December 1981 , he took off in the spring of 1982 nationally and internationally. The German version of Ganz Wien (duration: 5:08) is included on the accompanying album, Einzelhaft , which was produced by Ponger , as is the back of the second single, Maschine brennt, which was released in the summer of 1982 .

The whole of Vienna remained an integral part of Falco's live concerts, and he also appeared occasionally as a guest star at Drahdiwaberl concerts, including the 1996 Arena Open Air 1000 Years of Austria / 100 Years of Drahdiwaberl . “In his texts and music, Falco reflected an attitude towards life without which a place like U4 could never have been built. To this day, Falco's music is always present in the U4, and his whole of Vienna has long been the 'national anthem' for several generations of regulars. "( Conny de Beauclair )

In March 2017, more than 35 years after its creation and first publication, Ganz Wien entered the official Austrian charts through download sales and was 72nd for a week.

Videos

At the beginning of That Scene you can see the feet and the long leather coat of a styled man (Falco) getting off a U4 of the Vienna subway at the Meidling station and walking to a man in a Blues Brothers outfit . These scenes are always interrupted by others in which a woman is dancing with Falco. In the subway station, Man 1 drops several record covers of That Scene as identification and walks past Man 2 up the escalator. Man 2 follows through “dark” Vienna. You go out, under the large thatched roof of the former bus stop next to the underground station in the direction of the Club U4 disco . The sequences of a performance by Falco in his red fantasy uniform were also filmed there, which have now been cut in between. A couple they walk past cuddles very hard under the canopy. The two men walk one behind the other past the people gathered in front of the U4, down into the premises. The woman of the previously dancing couple walks through dark corridors during the guitar solo and the man follows them, then they dance again. At the toilet, a man (Falco) in a black and white striped jacket rhythmically shakes a closed bottle of champagne and then sprays the foam on a woman standing in front of the mirror with a very transparent dress and an apparently worn face. The Scene is written on the mirror in lipstick . At the end the dance couple kisses each other tightly and continues to dance.

A video for the German version shows two different appearances by Falco with a ribbon (one with the red uniform, one with the baseball cap pulled over his face). In between there are flashing scenes with “typical”, symbolic scenes from Vienna, including people in the Kärntnertorpassage on their way to the Opernpassage . Then Falco walks through the Opera Passage with a long coat and wide-brimmed hat. The area around Karlsplatz and the Opernpassage was already a drug transshipment point back then. When the liver is gone, a half of the pork is shown at the butcher's. Budapest Nyugati pályaudvar train station stands out as the only picture that certainly does not belong to Vienna .

A video broadcast on Bayerischer Rundfunk incorrectly showed the insert “ All of Vienna early live Falco, around 1979”, which would not be consistent with the usual descriptions. Another broadcaster dated it to "Wiener Metropol, 1981".

Cover versions

  • On the CD 20 Years U4 , published in 2000 and compiled by Willi Türk , a live version by Hansi Lang can be heard (duration: 4:17).
  • Nina Hagen sang it at a recorded live performance.
  • The band Bunny Lake released a version on their CD The Beautiful Fall 2010 (duration: 4:13). Another version of them is included on the sampler Wien Musik 2011 (duration: 3:28)
  • Ernst Molden and Der Nino from Vienna released a version on their joint album Unser Österreich in 2015 .

"All of Vienna ..." at the turn of the decade

Whole Vienna dreams of cocaine by Georg Danzer , which he published in 1977/1978 on A little hope and fool's house , is similar in title as well as thematically . In it he describes the cocaine scene in Vienna. The LP Narrenturm was re-pressed in 1981.

Like Falco, Peter Cornelius released Ganz Wien has the blues on the LP Reif für die Insel and as a single in 1981 . It is about Vienna sneaking along and that this is inherent in the Viennese.

Web links

References and comments

  1. a b Biography - Sections The course is set .. & Hans Hölzel becomes Falco & The rise to a pop star , falco.at, Falco private foundation
  2. Drahdiwaberl - Psychoterror , austriancharts.at
  3. Drahdiwaberl & Falco , sra.at, Archive of Austrian Popular Music
  4. Charts AT
  5. release date "That Scene (Ganz Wien)"
  6. ^ Falco - That Scene (All of Vienna) , austriancharts.at
  7. release date "Der Kommissar"
  8. www.conny.at/falco , around 2008
  9. At 0:06 am you can see the significantly wide platform and in the background a red and white set of types E 6 and c 6 of the former Gürtel light rail, now underground line 6 .
  10. At 1:57 you can see the entrance to the U4, where the writing can be seen above the door.
  11. The rather High German LP A Little Hope was released at the end of 1977 (biography georgdanzer.at) in Germany and with a few songs exchanged as a dialect production Narrenturm in Austria. The latter was imported directly from German record dealers, which is why it was released in Germany. In 1981 Narrenturm was first re-released.
  12. ^ Scene> Vienna Songs / All of Vienna. falter.at, Best of Vienna 1/2003, p. 54 ( Memento from January 23, 2005 in the Internet Archive )