Original Source: welt.de
English translation by Rammstein USA: http://www.rammstein.us/archives/3820
Till Lindemann, the singer of Rammstein, published a volume of poetry. A conversation about poetry, nature as a sacred place and his life as the son of the East German writer Werner Lindemann.
By Michael Pilz of Die Welt. Translation by SonneN
Till Lindemann is sitting in the dome of a tower over Berlin. The tower was built by the architect Herrmann Henselmann sixty years ago at Frankfurter Tor as a power character of the GDR. Now in its tip there is a lounge. For twenty years, Lindemann sings and writes for Rammstein. Not any other German band is so successful worldwide. Lindemann also writes poems without rock music. In 2005 his first volume of poetry was published under the title “Knife”. “In silent nights” is the second, a collection of touching, amusing, and often desolate verses. Lindemann is reluctant to talk about Rammstein, more gladly about his poetry and its origin.
The World: Should we talk about poetry?
Till Lindemann: Not really. If you read poems, you can find something in it or not. I know almost no one who still reads poetry.
The World: Don’t you?
Lindemann : Nevertheless. Mostly old stuff. My Bible says “German Love poems.” A book series from the East. I have done a search on a Booklooker, and it came up only once . 82 copies I already own. My dream is to have a whole shelf of it. In the book, anything goes, from Eichendorff and Hölderlin.
The World: One of your own poems is called “Father’s Day”, “Have your eyes in my face / I know you / I do not know you.” Speaking as the father or the son?
Lindemann : I speak with my father.
The World: Your father, Werner Lindemann, was a noted poet and writer in the GDR. In his book, “Mike Oldfield in the rocking chair” from 1988 it’s not about the music of Mike Oldfield, but about you as his son.
Lindemann : I myself have had the book seven years ago, republished it, after I had a long good talk to persuade my mother. The second edition was published by a small publishing house in Rostock. We had a new picture taken for it’s cover, with me on railroad tracks.
The World: In the first edition it was a lonely punk with a cat. Your father is worried about you in the book.
Lindemann : It was in the aftermath of the training, my parents were separated, and I moved from Rostock to my father, drawn back to the land. I was 18, already had enough of parties, and wanted to leave behind me all the fuss of the city, start a new life in the country. With my father, I had renovated an attic for me, and he always would come up to my room and was bugging me because of my music. I then was listening to a lot of metal and electronic stuff.
The World: Not Mike Oldfield?
Lindemann : That too. But mostly I’ve listened to Motorhead, Deep Purple and other noise. Once he came in again grumbling about something. But then I was listening to Mike Oldfield, he sat down, and said: ‘That sounds interesting.’ For me, it was a quantum leap: My father sits in my room, listening to my music and finds it good too. Probably because of its melancholy. He sat in my rocking chair, which I had built myself; I was a carpenter at that time in a farm. I sat in the chair otherwise, always seduced by my music and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes.
The World: Your father was not in agreement with your way of self-discovery.
Lindemann : I believe, that is in the nature of fatherhood. After nine months I moved out with flying colors again.
The World: What would it have been that your father, the national poet, wished for a son?
Lindemann : His problem was in general: one should not be too late to have children. The distance to the problems of youth is otherwise too great. Because a 60-year-old can barely grasp why would you come home late at night as a 16-year-old; drink alcohol beyond measure, eat unhealthy and sleep until eleven. And why would you ruin the ears with loud music. My father was happy to have survived the shelling in the trenches. With a normal age gap of 20 years, fathers develop more leniency in the father-son conflict. One still remember how he was at same age as his son and can sleep easy. So I’ve done that then with my children.
The World: Werner Lindemann’s poems were included into the school curriculum in the GDR. Was it because he was a representative of the system?
Lindemann : At the time I have not thought about it. Or I have repressed it. He has written poems about Lenin, about the light in the Kremlin. But that was the time. Painters had painted socialist realism. Sculptors have carved workers. My father had a good life. He has lived in his home country as I do today. He was three or four weeks on a reading tour and visited the libraries and schools throughout the GDR, he knew every librarian and every teacher in the zone. Like I, he also had small tour operations. Once money were in the till again, he sat in his house, wrote poems and let it go.
The World: He co-founded the artists’ colony Drispeth.
Lindemann : Drispeth, Meteln, Zickhusen. There also lived Christa Wolff, Helga Schubert and Joachim Seyppel. Because they have sought refuge. I still live today in the close vicinity.
The World: Your father has also kept poems of yours: “He cracks easily / Every nut / And that does not want / must”. Since you were nine. This is not so far away from Werner Lindemann’s children verses: “There is a tree / In it a hollow space / Therein resides a woodpecker / To me it is right.”
Lindemann : Whether this is hereditary, I don’t know. He had really wanted in any case, that I had written in my riper youth. Then I would have been his flagship son. That I was writing back then, he was rather amused. Once, I was ten or eleven, I sat with him in the car and was annoyed by the eternal question of who I wanted to be. Actually, I wanted to be a deep-sea fisherman. Catch huge horseshoe crabs and bring to the GDR, photographing sharks in the catch. My father said it was a tough job. And I said, “Then I might still need to be a writer, by the way”. He was terribly upset. He felt offended. He realized how he is seen. But it’s just as I look at his profession now. One can truly make the side. The importance, with which many authors appraise their work, is truly frightening. They think they are the center of the world.
The World: In ” Weißes Fleisch(White Meat)” in Rammstein you sing “My father was just like me.”
Lindemann : No, no. It’s a sex offender sings his apology for his actions. It’s a role.
The World: Werner Lindemann has died twenty years ago. Would he like the poems of his son?
Lindemann : He would be “proud that I followed in his footsteps”. After all, with two books. But we would have probably gotten into each other hair. Because of his origins and his history certain words included into poems are not for him. Fuck and ass. Crass word interpretations. Or invented words, neologisms.
English translation by Rammstein USA: http://www.rammstein.us/archives/3820
Till Lindemann, the singer of Rammstein, published a volume of poetry. A conversation about poetry, nature as a sacred place and his life as the son of the East German writer Werner Lindemann.
By Michael Pilz of Die Welt. Translation by SonneN
Till Lindemann is sitting in the dome of a tower over Berlin. The tower was built by the architect Herrmann Henselmann sixty years ago at Frankfurter Tor as a power character of the GDR. Now in its tip there is a lounge. For twenty years, Lindemann sings and writes for Rammstein. Not any other German band is so successful worldwide. Lindemann also writes poems without rock music. In 2005 his first volume of poetry was published under the title “Knife”. “In silent nights” is the second, a collection of touching, amusing, and often desolate verses. Lindemann is reluctant to talk about Rammstein, more gladly about his poetry and its origin.
The World: Should we talk about poetry?
Till Lindemann: Not really. If you read poems, you can find something in it or not. I know almost no one who still reads poetry.
The World: Don’t you?
Lindemann : Nevertheless. Mostly old stuff. My Bible says “German Love poems.” A book series from the East. I have done a search on a Booklooker, and it came up only once . 82 copies I already own. My dream is to have a whole shelf of it. In the book, anything goes, from Eichendorff and Hölderlin.
The World: One of your own poems is called “Father’s Day”, “Have your eyes in my face / I know you / I do not know you.” Speaking as the father or the son?
Lindemann : I speak with my father.
The World: Your father, Werner Lindemann, was a noted poet and writer in the GDR. In his book, “Mike Oldfield in the rocking chair” from 1988 it’s not about the music of Mike Oldfield, but about you as his son.
Lindemann : I myself have had the book seven years ago, republished it, after I had a long good talk to persuade my mother. The second edition was published by a small publishing house in Rostock. We had a new picture taken for it’s cover, with me on railroad tracks.
The World: In the first edition it was a lonely punk with a cat. Your father is worried about you in the book.
Lindemann : It was in the aftermath of the training, my parents were separated, and I moved from Rostock to my father, drawn back to the land. I was 18, already had enough of parties, and wanted to leave behind me all the fuss of the city, start a new life in the country. With my father, I had renovated an attic for me, and he always would come up to my room and was bugging me because of my music. I then was listening to a lot of metal and electronic stuff.
The World: Not Mike Oldfield?
Lindemann : That too. But mostly I’ve listened to Motorhead, Deep Purple and other noise. Once he came in again grumbling about something. But then I was listening to Mike Oldfield, he sat down, and said: ‘That sounds interesting.’ For me, it was a quantum leap: My father sits in my room, listening to my music and finds it good too. Probably because of its melancholy. He sat in my rocking chair, which I had built myself; I was a carpenter at that time in a farm. I sat in the chair otherwise, always seduced by my music and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes.
The World: Your father was not in agreement with your way of self-discovery.
Lindemann : I believe, that is in the nature of fatherhood. After nine months I moved out with flying colors again.
The World: What would it have been that your father, the national poet, wished for a son?
Lindemann : His problem was in general: one should not be too late to have children. The distance to the problems of youth is otherwise too great. Because a 60-year-old can barely grasp why would you come home late at night as a 16-year-old; drink alcohol beyond measure, eat unhealthy and sleep until eleven. And why would you ruin the ears with loud music. My father was happy to have survived the shelling in the trenches. With a normal age gap of 20 years, fathers develop more leniency in the father-son conflict. One still remember how he was at same age as his son and can sleep easy. So I’ve done that then with my children.
The World: Werner Lindemann’s poems were included into the school curriculum in the GDR. Was it because he was a representative of the system?
Lindemann : At the time I have not thought about it. Or I have repressed it. He has written poems about Lenin, about the light in the Kremlin. But that was the time. Painters had painted socialist realism. Sculptors have carved workers. My father had a good life. He has lived in his home country as I do today. He was three or four weeks on a reading tour and visited the libraries and schools throughout the GDR, he knew every librarian and every teacher in the zone. Like I, he also had small tour operations. Once money were in the till again, he sat in his house, wrote poems and let it go.
The World: He co-founded the artists’ colony Drispeth.
Lindemann : Drispeth, Meteln, Zickhusen. There also lived Christa Wolff, Helga Schubert and Joachim Seyppel. Because they have sought refuge. I still live today in the close vicinity.
The World: Your father has also kept poems of yours: “He cracks easily / Every nut / And that does not want / must”. Since you were nine. This is not so far away from Werner Lindemann’s children verses: “There is a tree / In it a hollow space / Therein resides a woodpecker / To me it is right.”
Lindemann : Whether this is hereditary, I don’t know. He had really wanted in any case, that I had written in my riper youth. Then I would have been his flagship son. That I was writing back then, he was rather amused. Once, I was ten or eleven, I sat with him in the car and was annoyed by the eternal question of who I wanted to be. Actually, I wanted to be a deep-sea fisherman. Catch huge horseshoe crabs and bring to the GDR, photographing sharks in the catch. My father said it was a tough job. And I said, “Then I might still need to be a writer, by the way”. He was terribly upset. He felt offended. He realized how he is seen. But it’s just as I look at his profession now. One can truly make the side. The importance, with which many authors appraise their work, is truly frightening. They think they are the center of the world.
The World: In ” Weißes Fleisch(White Meat)” in Rammstein you sing “My father was just like me.”
Lindemann : No, no. It’s a sex offender sings his apology for his actions. It’s a role.
The World: Werner Lindemann has died twenty years ago. Would he like the poems of his son?
Lindemann : He would be “proud that I followed in his footsteps”. After all, with two books. But we would have probably gotten into each other hair. Because of his origins and his history certain words included into poems are not for him. Fuck and ass. Crass word interpretations. Or invented words, neologisms.
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