Vielen Dank to Our German Visitors!

Vielen Dank (thanks a lot) to two dozen German visitors who arrived at the PRP.FM studio Thursday morning from the Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Tübingen! If mutually breaking into dance and laughter is an indicator, they are doing a great job of fulfilling their mission: to promote dialogue and friendship between Germans and other nationalities.

Hearing about the guests last week, PRP staffers began tossing around ideas for music that would both fit the rock/folk/blues format and delight our guests. It seemed as though everyone on our team suddenly had an idea for a popular song from Germany – or a German version of something familiar to Americans.

Jeff Thomas, who was in middle school when the antinuclear protest song was a worldwide hit in the 1980s, immediately thought of Nena‘s “99 Luftballons.”

Watch Nena’s 1983 video.

Abba’s version of “Waterloo” in German did not disappoint. Thanks, Dan Clark:

And Dan pointed out that “Motown tried for the international market with Spanish, German and Italian versions of the hits,” which led us to Marvin Gaye’s German version of “How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You.”

It was Dan’s tip that also prompted us to play the theme from Disney’s “Frozen” – the highest-grossing animated Disney film ever – on the very day rumors of a sequel surfaced. In German, it’s “Lass Jetzt Los.”

As PRP Music Director Inessa noticed, we already have The Beatles’ singing “Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand” in the PRP.FM music library:

And she thought the visit would be incomplete without a bit of German Industrial rock from Einstürzende Neubauten, which uses custom instruments from scrap metal and building tools in songs like Musentango: