In today's post of my Monday Music blog series it is not a specific song, genre, or interpreter that I want to focus on, but instead a collector of songs. The YouTube channel Dicker Hund (Fat Dog in English) has an enormous collection of old German songs, from a number of historical contexts, all lovingly assembled with lyrics and beautiful illustrations. Though many of them will be completely unfamiliar to most of us, some of these songs might ring a bell for anyone who has been exposed to the German culture at last for a little bit.
Perfect for a Sing Along
What I really like about this collection is the visual presentation of an otherwise purely acoustic experience. For one thing, all the words are spelled out in German, following the progression of the song. At the same time, there is (usually) an English translation to these lyrics, displayed at the same time. This is why I like to recommend this channel to my German language clients, and indeed they have prompted interesting conversations, not just about the language but also about the context of the songs.
Well Selected Imagery
The other thing I really enjoy about the Dicker Hund are the amazing pictures he uses to underlay his videos with. Taken from historical postcards, oil paintings, propaganda posters, photographs, and a variety of other kinds of images, it seems like the illustration is always spot on regarding the content of each particular moment in the song. This makes me admire not only his immense source of music, but also his equally impressive resource of imagery.
Songs About Wars and Warriors
At first glance, it seems like the Dicker Hund hasn't left one war uncovered. The war of unification of 1871 is featured as prominently as the Thirty Year's War in the 17th century, Word War I, and even World War II. No reason to omit either one, particularly since neither song on his list has a particularly disturbing nature. They address the camaraderie among soldiers, sailors, or paratroopers, their hopes, fears, and their immediate experience in fighting for their country.
Songs of the Homelands Near and Far
Similarly, many of the songs listed are from a particular region of the German speaking world. Some are the "official" anthem of a province, though most are simply important songs of a region's cultural heritage. A closer look will reveal that some songs are not even of German background per se, though still with German lyrics. For example, there are a couple of North American cowboy songs, apparently of German speaking cattle hands who adapted existing English songs into German. Or, there is a South African song about the Boer Wars, taking the side of the Dutch (that is Afrikaaner) Boer settlers of Transvaal.
Influence of the German Youth Movement
Whether songs about soldiers, pirates, or cossacks, from your home town or from across the world, about the struggle of the working class or the 1848 revolutions, there is one thread that ties all these songs together: The German Youth Movement, which can be understood as scouting, though it encompasses many other similar organizations other the the Boy Scouts (Pfadfinder). The description of each relevant video offers a bit of historical insight into who these groups were and how they are connected to that song.
Songs from the Trail
Many songs are categorized as Fahrtenlied in German, and Hiking Song in English. Though it may suggest the idea that Germans love to break into song when on a trail (something understandable, but not necessarily more so than hikers from other cultures), these songs are much rather about the experience of a journey, whether by boat, by train, and of course on foot, which is an essential part of the youth movement. While I never was formally a member of any scouting organization, some good friends of mine were, and from hanging out and traveling with them I got to know many of these songs: songs about the trail, but also songs that took us back in time to past wars and struggles.
Lest We Forget
Singing with the scouts was great fun, but looking outside of their circle I suddenly had to realize how weird and unusual we all must appear to others. Being familiar with these old songs, and naturally their historic contexts, I would have assumed they are part of common knowledge, shared by the general populace. However, in the mainstream most of them are completely unknown, even what I would consider the most famous ones, such as Die Gedanken sind frei or Wir lieben die Stürme.
The Nazi Trap
To make things worse, many of these old songs, if not all, are seen as suspiciously nationalistic by many people. After all, anything that describes the beauties and wonders of your home region, or songs that make your pride swell about your people and culture are just getting uncomfortably close to the Nazi ideology. For those of you who are not familiar with contemporary German culture, this may seem completely exaggerated, but anyone who knows any Germans personally will understand that it is in fact quite common. There is such a general fear of being considered a Nazi, that there is very little interest in these old songs, storing so much of historical culture. This is a great pity in my opinion, making me appreciate the efforts of the Dicker Hund even more.
An Ongoing Collection
To top things off, the song collection of Dicker Hund is far from complete. Each week he posts several new ones. Having been up since 2007, this means there are A LOT of songs already, and the list keeps growing. Additionally he uploads a so called Wunschkonzert of about an hour long, where his followers can request their favorite ones. Iḿ particularly fond of these "wish concerts", as they offer a great variety of songs, without having to scroll through the impressive list of featured songs. For anyone interested in historical German songs, folk traditions, or the music collected by the youth movement, I can highly recommend Dicker Hund.
