Theo, we're going to Lodz

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Theo, wir'n nach Lodz is the title of a hit song by Vicky Leandros from 1974 that became an evergreen and based on the older song Rosa, wir'n nach Lodz by Fritz Löhner-Beda and Artur Marcell Werau from the year Returned in 1915.

History of origin

The origin of the song probably goes back to a farmhand song from the Thirty Years War . The historical background of the song is the Polish city of Łódź . In the 19th century a text was written that referred to the industrial boom in the city, which led to large parts of the rural population leaving the villages and moving to the city ("I'm sick of this country air ..."). The Jews of the city of Łódź sang mockingly “Itzek, come with me to Lodz…” and ironically equated the city, which was then becoming an industrial metropolis, with the promised land. But there were also numerous other versions such as B. "Leo, we're going to Lodz, we're going to build a house and a factory ..." Even today the city is considered an exceptional example of industrial architecture from the 19th century.

In 1915 the two Austrians Fritz Löhner-Beda , an operetta librettist, and Artur Marcell Werau published their title Rosa, wir fahr'n nach Lodz . It was a soldier's song (“March Couplet ”), because its “Rosa” was the 30.5 cm mortar of the Austro-Hungarian Army , which was manufactured by the Bohemian armaments company Skoda , the counterpart to Krupp'sthicker Bertha ”in Germany. In the original Austrian text, Franzl's heavy bride is nothing more than the mortar "Rosa" with which he went on his honeymoon to Lodz at the start of the war. The song was a satirizing “hymn about our 30.5 ctm. Mortar, called Rosa “thought.

In Germany, the Austrian war song by the 13-part was ORF - TV series The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik (directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner , with Fritz Muliar as Schweik) announced it was broadcast in Austria and Germany from 6 February 1,972th This also contained the song Rosa, we are going to Lodz . In this way, the pop composer Leo Leandros got to know the text and melody.

Leandros commissioned the Hamburg lyricist and music producer Klaus Munro to write a new text for the melody. Munro left it with the reference to Łódź and oriented himself back to the rural exodus scene, which dominated the original text. The record label Philips / Phonogram was not convinced by the text; it corresponds neither to the zeitgeist nor the image of Vicky Leandros. Vicky Leandros was more specialized in Mediterranean-oriented and romantic ballads. A typical example of this was the title Ich hab die Liebe gesehn (music: Mikis Theodorakis ), which, after its publication in July 1972, was Vicky's most successful German hit with 820,000 copies.

Vicky's father, Leo Leandros, worked as a producer at Theo, we're going to Lodz and weren't put off by the resistance of the label. On the contrary, the fanfare-like sequenced melody of the opening motif was very unusual for Schlager, but gave the piece a distinctive and recognizable characteristic. The humorous, slightly ironic tone of the evergreen is in turn well balanced by the contrast between the “civil” text and the “martial” music.

( Audio sample ? / I ) The striking opening motif of the songAudio file / audio sample

Publication and Success

Vicky Leandros: Theo, we're going to Lodz

The single Theo we drive to Lodz / You and I and Heaven was released in early May 1974, and the A-side had its TV debut on May 16 in the ZDF Star Parade . The record sold 400,000 times by July, was first listed in Germany on May 27, 1974 in the German single charts and stayed there for 28 weeks (18 weeks of which in the top 10). For a week he placed himself in first place and became a summer hit . For Leandros it remained the only number one hit in Germany.

The song was the leitmotif of the Derrick episode "Alarm auf Revier 12" in 1975

Numerous other versions subsequently appeared, such as B. Leo, we're going to Lodz, we're building a house and a factory… . An American version of Leandros' interpretation was also produced (under the title Henry, Let's Go to Town ), the British know the song as Danny, Teach Me to Dance . The French version Théo, on va au bal was published in Canada and France. In Poland, the song only became known to the general public in 2009 when it was used in a commercial for the Łódź City Tourism Office .

The composer of “Rosa, we drive to Lodz”, Artur Marcell Werau, died in 1931, the lyricist Fritz Löhner-Beda was murdered by the Nazis in 1942 in the Auschwitz concentration camp .

Individual evidence

  1. Hanswilhelm Haefs : The 3rd manual of useless knowledge . 2002, p. 93.
  2. cf. Christian Emden, Catherine Keen, David R. Midgley: Imagining the City . Volume 2, Frankfurt and New York 2006, p. 180; Winston Chu: The German Minority in Interwar Poland . 2012, p. 117.
  3. Moritz Oriole: HALALI 2: Ten portraits . Orpheus 2010 (2nd edition), p. 227f.
  4. a b Der Spiegel 32/1974 of August 5, 1974, perfectly built , p. 91 f.
  5. ^ Artur M. Werau, Rosa, we are going to Lodz , 1915
  6. Moritz Pirol, Halalí 2: Ten Portraits , 2010, p. 229.
  7. Ingo Grabowsky / Martin Lücke, Die 100 Schlager des Jahrhundert , 2008, p. 102 ff.
  8. See Günter Ehnert (Hrsg.): Hit balance sheet. German chart singles 1956-1980 . Hamburg: Taurus Press, 1990, p. 122
  9. Cover info
  10. Mayor of the city invites. Vicky, come to Lodz! Bild.de, August 23, 2012
  11. Video on youtube, accessed on January 29, 2016

literature

  • Peter E. Nasarski (ed.), Edmund Effenberger: Lodz - "Promised Land". From a German drapery settlement to a textile metropolis in the east. Berlin / Bonn 1988, ISBN 3-922131-63-8 .

Web links