visions
| Visions on Alphaville´s music
by Alphaville, from various sources: Prostitute album 1994 A Commentary by Marian (´Moonpaper´ No. 3+4/94) Paradigm Shift "A song from Ricky. When I heard the song the first time, I liked it immediately because of it´s ´Japan´ - like groove. Bernds complained about what he thought was a condescending tone in the lyrics. I admit that the pointed finger is obvious in the lyrics. They contain a lot of Ricky´s personal philosophy of life and his commentary on our present times. He sang himself on the demo. I think it would have been interesting if he would have sung on the master version, as I had difficulties with the vocals and wasn´t satisfied with the results. To be quite honest, I´d be interested in knowing what you would think if someone else would sing (e.g. Ricky)." Fools "One of the first songs that was written for this album. Must have been in 1992. We had completely recorded the song, but none of us was really satisfied with it. Then Ricky played these new chords, which you hear on the new version. It was like magic. All the parts fell into place all by themselves, the vocals, base quitar. No matter what you did to it, the song always souded phantastic. That´s why there´s so many versions of ´Fools´; I personally like the piano version best (Faithful & True)." Beethoven "A song from Bernd and Ricky. Originally without lyrics. Then the murders in Moelln and Solingen happend." Ascension Day "I wrote this song the week after Freddy Mercury ´s death from Aids. I was so sad, as sad as back in 1980, when I heard about the assasination of John Lennon, or in 1963, when they murdered Kennedy. I tried to express everything in ´Ascension Day´ which I felt at such times, especially what Freddy meant to me. That wasn´t possible in three and a half minutes. Freddy is still an idol for me, a universal genius, like Prince. It´s still hard for me to listen to the last Queen album ´Innuendo´ from beginning to end, because you can clearly feel Freddy´s desperation and anger and protest in the face of a certain death." The Impossible Dream "One of Bernd´s favourite songs on this album." Parade "Another song from Ricky. He wrote it under the influence of the war between Kuwait and Irak. (Irak attacked Kuwait and claimed it as one of its provinces). I remember distinctly the many peace demonstrations from this time. They were mainly against the Americans, who had hurried to help the Kuwait. Funnily enough, no one (we didn´t either) demonstrated against Saddam Hussein, who was the real instigator and war lord of this senselss bloodshed. But I understand even less today the public indifference towards the murder and burning of the Serbs in Bosnia. All these things are indirectly related to the theme of ´Parade´. But foremost, it is the description of a soldier´s burial. The boys come, some of them in caskets. And no one is to blame." Ain´t it strange "This song asks questions, which ´Fools´ doesn´t answer. But sometimes there is a kind of answer in the way the questions gets put. Or, there aren´t as many answers as one thinks. Or you always ask the wrong questions." All In The Golden Afternoon "The lyrics are from Lewis Carroll´s ´Alice in Wonderland´. He describes the genesis of this strange fairy tale in beautiful words. Rainer (Bloss), our co-author and an old friend of mine, wrote the fitting soundtrack." Oh Patti "Patti is not a phantasy figure, but a real person." Ivory Tower "...describes the history of the band by using quotes from the earlier albums. I must confess, that I got the idea from the Beatles song ´Glass Onion´." Faith "I dreamt playing and dreaming this song. And that´s what I did when I woke up. I have no idea, who wrote it." Iron John "One of Bernd´s first compositions. I estimate it dates back to 1981. I think of it as an electric folk song. This song threatened to become a burden from the past, because for some reason or the other, we never were able to integrate it into any of our earlier productions. this time it worked out. Unfortunately, the bagpipes are missing in the instumental parts." The One Thing "We were working on a song, when a reporter named Gale was reporting live about the racial unrest in LA. Ricky recorded her report and we used it as background atmosphere for this track. Synchronicity!" Some People "A malicious piece of music with malicious lyrics about a malicious world. It´s one of the darkest moments of the album for me." Euphoria "The last production for ´Prostitute´ ...and the best choral parts on any Alphaville album to date." Apollo "My favourite song. Maybe we should have done it as a ballad." |