Kraftwerk: Language, Lucre, and Loss of Identity

Abstract

This article examines lyrics and language(s) in the music of the German electronic band Kraftwerk. This group started out in the Krautrock wave of the early 1970s and proceeded to produce some of the most influential music of the late 20th century. An examination of this material uncovers surprising depths in many of Kraftwerk's lyrics, while it further reveals that the group significantly altered its art in an attempt to retain the international success won when their “Autobahn” single and its parent album became surprise worldwide hits in 1975.

Notes

^[1] I will offer the German (or English) versions of titles and lyrics in parentheses unless doing so would likely have a negative impact on legibility.

^[2] Radio-Aktivität, Trans Europa Express, Die Mensch-Maschine , and Computerwelt.

^[3] Flür returned to music briefly; with Mouse on Mars duo Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner, he recorded the album Time Pie (1997) under the name Yamo. He also released his autobiography in 1999: I was a Robot (original title: Ich war ein Roboter). Bartos remained in the music business, releasing albums in collaboration with Electronic, with his own group Elektric Music, and under his own name.

^[4] Jim DeRogatis (127) notes that an Englishman—Dave Anderson, later of Hawkwind—was bassist for Amon Düül II's first two albums, Phallus Dei and Yeti. Ironically, these albums used more German language than the albums which followed. According to the website Allmusic.com, Anderson also appeared on the next two Amon Düül II albums, Tanz der Lemminge and Carnival in Babylon (“Tanz der Lemminge”; “Carnival in Babylon”).

^[5] It must be mentioned that, even before Suzuki began to sing with Can, the group had an American singer, Malcolm Mooney. Yet even with Mooney (as would be the case with his successor), the emphasis was more on the sound of the words and of the voice itself than on the meaning of the words. One can clearly discern this from the one full album Mooney recorded with the band, Monster Movie (1969), especially on the album's closer, “Yoo Doo Right.”

^[6] Even while defending Kraftwerk's lyrics, Hermann Haring calls the texts crude: “Kraftwerk texts are crude because the fascinating things in life seem just as crude” (my translation). Original: “Kraftwerk-Texte sind simpel, weil das, was am Leben fasziniert ebenso simpel scheint” (198).

^[7] An anonymous reviewer claims that this paper downplays the possibility that the line “We are the robots” could be social criticism aimed at West Germans—and Western society in general—because of their loss of identity and lack of revolutionary spirit. Considering that Kraftwerk recorded this album in the wake of the musical and political upheaval which was the punk movement, such an interpretation seems unlikely. However, the reviewer's comment demonstrates the wide range of meanings available within these brief lyrics. Another possible interpretation is that Kraftwerk was playing on the stereotype of Germans as ultra-efficient, humorless automatons.

^[8] German lyrics: “Wir sind Schaufensterpuppen/Wir sind die Roboter.”

^[9] In this instance, “exhibiting” rather than “exposing” would likely carry the meaning of the German verb “ausstellen” more closely.

^[10] The mediating factor of the camera, present in the English translation (and the first verse of both “The Model” and “Das Modell”) is not present in the German depiction of this viewing. Conversely, in the following line of the English version, the singer sees the model “on the cover of a magazine,” whereas the act of seeing is only implied in the German. (It is also notable that this English line is a likely allusion to Chuck Berry's “Little Queenie,” one which is absent in the German version.)

^[11] All nouns have gender in the German language. Objects can be masculine, feminine, or neuter: spoon (der Löffel) is masculine; fork (die Gabel) is feminine; and knife (das Messer) is neuter. The gender for nouns referring to humans generally corresponds to the biological gender—though not always, as seen above. The first words of “Das Modell”—“Sie ist ein Modell”—contain a switch in grammatical gender for the same entity (the model). The same gender shift (feminine–neuter) is present in the German terms for band (die Gruppe, die Band, die Combo) and Kraftwerk's name. Admittedly, however, this is likely just a coincidence.

^[12] Contradicting this interpretation, Kraftwerk's young smiles did not gleam under the spotlight, to paraphrase a line from the German lyric. Nonetheless, the overriding point here is that the model acts—and to some extent has to act—totally different at her job than she does otherwise, and drummer Wolfgang Flür's autobiography shows that this was very much the case with Kraftwerk.

^[13] The structure of “The Hall of Mirrors” is similar to those of “The Robots” and “Showroom Dummies”: the verse consists of a single couplet and is followed by a repeated chorus.

^[14] Kraftwerk predecessor Organisation's sole album, Tone Float, also had a track over twenty minutes in length. In line with early Kraftwerk records, this album contains only five tracks.

^[15] Admittedly, the intervals are slightly different and the chorus of “Good Vibrations” modulates up again while “Airwaves” returns to the original key. The effect is similar nonetheless.

^[16] “Uranium” (“Uran”) also contains a German text alongside an English translation.

^[17] Radio-Activity did sell well in France, reaching the top of the French album charts (Haring 201).

^[18] German versions: Ein Deutsches Album and Deutsches Album. Gabriel titled the English version of each of his first four albums Peter Gabriel. In the United States, the fourth of these albums was given the title Security.

^[19] Pascal Bussy (93) states that the band has recorded French versions of several tracks after “Les Mannequins”, though he does not list them in his discography of the band. The author of this paper has not been able to discover their existence. It seems possible that Bussy was referring to the Tour de France Soundtracks.

^[20] My translation. Original: “Ich bin Ihr Diener und Ihr Herr zugleich.”

^[21] My translation. Original: “der bizarre und überwiegend erfolgreiche Versuch, eine völlig deutsche Platte zu machen.” This is a back-translation, as I was unfortunately unable to obtain a copy of Cope's Krautrocksampler in the original English.

^[22] Bartos and Flür were not official members of Kraftwerk, merely “permanent guest musicians” (Flür 53). Flür describes their treatment by Hütter and Schneider, as well as his perception of it, several times in his autobiography Kraftwerk: I was a Robot, cf. 56, 59–60, 75, 82, 215–16. He also claims that he “wasn't making any money from Kraftwerk” (93).