This Is War

Dancing Queen

Introduction in English:

On a Saturday, 9 June 1989, I receive a phone call from my mother at around 6 am. She seems to be laughing. But as it soon turns out, tears are bursting out of her. At first she can only say one sentence: "Your father is dead". Then her voice fails. I, who has just been roused from my sleep by the ringing, at first think it's a bad joke. My father, not even 55 years old, dead, who had been so full of energy in the last few months? With whom I had spoken lively on the phone just a week ago?
Then my eldest sister comes to the phone. She speaks like a robot, as if she has frozen all her feelings inside herself.
She confirms the sudden death of my father from a heart attack and urges me to come immediately from Berlin to southern Germany (800 kilometres away).
Much of what happened after that - from the last encounter with my father in the morgue, to the years of vacillating between feelings of liberation and sometimes massively frightening "I'll bring you to me in the realm of the dead" nightmares after his funeral, to finding a deeper inner peace with him in the last few years - I wrote down and sang about in the following song "My Father in Heaven".      
However, the song lyrics are not chronological, but set in 2011, in which I am all alone on a beautiful summer day in the cemetery where my father's grave is located. From this day I start a retrospective and an outlook.     

Lyrics:

My Father in Heaven

What a beautiful day
All alone in the graveyard 
Come to visit you
Without a grudge

It's unbelievably quiet
Hear the dead deep asleep 
In an beyond harbour
Be with you soon

I hated you sometimes 
Had you so gladly touched,
You're gone too soon 
Left me alone with the dirt 
Of this life.

Wanted to tell you so much more 
You can't sneak away like that
A moment ago you were still there  
I felt quite close to you,

Now only 
A cold hand in the morgue
Nothing more moves

My father in heaven, 
I miss you very much, 
With wistfulness my heart sometimes
Becomes so heavy

When you were suddenly dead
Many things seemed easier, 
I moved forward in life, 
I looked free

but when I slept at night,
you'd come into my dreams, 
trying to pull me over, 
to the land beyond.

You didn’t let me go for so long 
Lying like a black mourning box
On my chest and belly, 
Felt like I was in a tube 
Trapped by you.

Often couldn’t defend myself
Felt completely without power 
When in the deep of the night
you came to my room, 

without a body, 
pure soul contact,
worlds still unknown to me.

Father in heaven,
do you hear me now,
I speak to you in peace, 
I am no longer hurt.

Your grave is newly decorated,
I've picked a bouquet for you, 
I sit down with you, 
I surrender tot he silence
peaceful silence. 

I am here now, you there
even if the wall separates us,
we see each other invisibly, 
You always stay close to me, 

I'll go on now, 
Stay here, 
I'll be back soon

Father in heaven
I think of you often 
You are indispensable, 
Come with me....

My Father in Heaven

My Father In Heaven

operation Q

Operation Q

Second part of my father trilogy.
This song is based on a dream I had a good 20 years ago with my father, who had been dead for some time. 
I am in a dimly lit room. It's just me and somehow my father's energy body. At some point, this invisible energy body comes towards me. Then we embrace. It is a merging embrace. Something deep inside me releases and makes me cry. It's not so much a sad cry, but a liberating, soothing cry that pacifies me completely. 
Since this dream, the grudge I harboured against him for a long time has largely disappeared.     
Somehow he has been there inside me since then and I can sometimes visit him (even in dreams) when I want to talk to him.

The arrangement of the song is deliberately minimalist (just vocals, guitar and violin, hardly any effects) in order to emphasise the tremendous intimacy of the encounter between my father and me in the dream described above (there is no longer a "leaf" between us).

My Father  (Lyrics in English)

Would so like to talk to you
Break through the walls to the hereafter
Meet you in a moon cafe
On chairs that stand here and there

You died before the Berlin Wall came down
My son was born on the day you died
Never saw my beautiful wife
Although you had aimed 
For a hundred years of life

You only reached half of it
Life was rarely really easy for you

You were often too close to the stars
Underestimated the danger to your life
Had so many visions
Wanted to live in castles in the air

Then you were all there again
So clairvoyant, wise and clear

Would love to have you with me now
My father, I would love to have you here now 

The dividing wall to you is now open
I haven't met you for so long
You're waiting for me in the moon cafe
I see you in the soft twilight

I want to tell you so many things
What happened after you left
You still wanted to experience it all
Your early death did not grant you that

You were so torn, the demons, they tore at you
You loved the rush, had little sense of yourself

And yet you were in deep distress
My ever-protecting boat
My steadying hand
The lighthouse in my land of chaos

You gave up the shirt off your back
That ultimately cost you your life

Would love to have you with me now
My father, I wish you were here now


Mein Vater (Deutscher Originaltext)

Möchte so gern mit Dir sprechen
Die Mauern zum Jenseits durchbrechen
Dich in einem Mond-Cafe` treffen
Auf Stühlen, die hier und dort stehen

Vor dem (Berliner) Mauerfall bist Du gestorben
An Deinem Todestag wurde mein Sohn geboren
Hast meine schöne Frau niemals erlebt
Dabei hattest Du 
Hundert Jahre Leben angestrebt

Hast grad‘ mal gut die Hälfte davon erreicht
Das Leben war für Dich selten wirklich leicht

Warst oft den Sternen zu nah
Unterschätztest die Lebensgefahr
Hattest so viele Visionen
Wolltest in Luftschlössern wohnen

Dann warst Du wieder ganz da
So hellsichtig, weise und klar

Hätt‘ Dich so gern jetzt bei mir
Mein Vater, hätt‘ Dich jetzt gern hier 

Die Trennwand zu Dir steht jetzt offen
So lange hab‘ ich Dich nicht getroffen
Du wartest im Mond-Cafe‘ auf mich
Ich seh‘ Dich im zarten Dämmerlicht

Ich will Dir so vieles erzählen
Was so geschah nach Deinem Fortgehen
Du wolltest das alles noch erleben
Dein früher Tod hat Dir das nicht vergönnt

Warst so zerrissen, die Dämonen, sie zerrten an Dir
Liebtest den Rausch, hattest für Dich wenig Feingespür

Und dennoch warst Du in tiefer Not
Mein stets mich schützendes Boot
Meine mir haltgebende Hand
Der Leuchtturm in meinem Chaos-Land

Hast Dein letztes Hemd hergegeben
Das kostete Dich letztlich Dein Leben

Hätt‘ Dich so gern jetzt bei mir
Mein Vater, hätt‘ Dich jetzt gern hier

Mein Vater (My Father)

ZiQuick - Dreams

Ein Gute-Laune-Song über schwesterliche Liebe. Hier der Text:

Beschde (Lilli A.)

Na, nana, na, na.

Ich steh‘ an Deiner Seite,
kein Weg ist mir zu weit.
Für jede Form von Unfug
bin ich jederzeit bereit.

Herz gebrochen. Du hilfst mir auf,
wenn ich am Boden liege. 
So viele Menschen,
viel zu wenig Liebe!

Du bist die Beschde
an jedem Tag,
weißt wie‘s mir geht, selbst
wenn ich gar nix sag.

Na, nana, na, na.

Mancher Glücksmoment mag
vielleicht einmal vergehen.
Doch in unserer Erinnerung
bleibt er ewig bestehen.

Schwesternzweisamkeit
wir kichern asynchron.
Es ist uns ganz egal.
Die Leute gucken schon.

Du bist die Beschde
an jedem Tag.
Hab ich Dir heut schon gesagt,
dass ich Dich mag?

Du bist die Beschde,
hast mein Humor.
Jeder Moment mit Dir
ist besser als davor.

Na, nana, na, na.

Das Leben ist zu kurz für irgendwann.
Dann lass uns leben im Hier und Jetzt.
Es muss nicht perfekt sein,
sondern nur echt.

Du bist die Beschde
an jedem Tag.
Hab ich Dir heut schon gesagt,
dass ich Dich mag?

Du bist die Beschde,
soll ich’s buchstabier´n?
damit die Norddeutschen
es auch kapier’n.

Na, nana, na, na.

Beschde

I don`t wanna tell you

Help!

Introduction in English

Sometimes I have to smile a little when I think about the fact that John Lennon was only 24 years old when he wrote these lyrics. 
He certainly didn't know about the cries for help that come with ageing from 60 plus. The experience of gradual physical decline and the increasing dependence on the support of other people. The gradual loss of autonomy, which is so important for one's own dignity. And the subliminal threat of retirement and nursing homes approaching, which then temporarily pulls you out of your increasing mental derangement by singing old Beatles songs.
But apart from that, he certainly already knew a lot about the hardships of being different, of not belonging; the longing to experience something like love in the worldwide recognition and at the same time having to suffocate and drown in this wave of adoration. 
In the pop era of the time, his desperate cry for help was reduced to a tolerable two minutes
I turned it into a leisurely three-minute waltz. And tried to express my increasing need for help in certain areas of life in different ways: shy and fragile, desperate and humble, angry and almost accusatory. 
And towards the end, I find myself in an almost otherworldly limbo in which a part of me comes to peace with the cry for help and finds its own new dignity in it.

Einführung auf Deutsch
Manchmal muß ich ein wenig schmunzeln, wenn ich daran denke, dass John Lennon erst 24 Jahre alt war, als er diesen Songtext schrieb. 
Da wusste er mit Sicherheit noch nichts von den Hilferufen, die mit dem Älterwerden ab 60 plus einhergehen. Die Erfahrung des allmählichen körperlichen Zerfalls und die sich zunehmend anschleichende Angewiesenheit auf die Unterstützung von anderen Menschen. Der allmähliche Verlust von Autonomie, der für die eigene Würde so wichtig ist. Und das unterschwellig drohende Herannahen von Senioren- und Pflegeheimen, die einem dann mit dem Singen von alten Beatles-Songs vorübergehend aus der zunehmenden geistigen Umnachtung herausreißen.
Aber abgesehen davon wußte er sicher schon viel von den Nöten des Andersseins, des nicht dazu gehörens; der Sehnsucht, in der weltweiten Anerkennung so etwas wie Liebe zu erfahren und zugleich in dieser Verehrungswelle geradezu ersticken und ertrinken zu müssen. 
In der damaligen Pop-Zeit wurde sein verzweifelter Hilferuf auf allseits erträgliche gut zwei Minuten eingedampft.
Ich habe daraus einen gut dreiminütigen gemächlichen Walzer gemacht. Und dabei versucht, meine in gewissen Lebensbereichen zunehmende Hilfsbedürftigkeit auf verschiedene Weise auszudrücken: Scheu und zerbrechlich, verzweifelt und demütig, wütend und beinahe anklagend. 
Und zum Ende hin befinde ich mich in einer fast schon jenseitigen Zwischenwelt, in der ein Teil in mir mit dem Hilferuf in Frieden kommt und darin eine eigene neue Würde findet.

Help!

Help! (Lennon/Mccartney)

ZiQuick - Impulses

Thank you for listening, reposting commenting and likes ... MUTTER BRENNSTEIN  is an Austrian music project and was founded in February 2014.
Any kind of music is art and connects the world.

I don`t wanna tell you

MUTTER BRENNSTEIN

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