I’m having an Oktoberfest party at the end of the month, and am looking for some popular American songs that were covered/translated into German. We’re a group of mid to late 20’s who are predominately into rock alternative, but are willing to settle for almost anything for it’s campiness. I don’t know where to start, suggestions?
HELP!
The Beatles did some of their songs in German.
She Loves You ie “Sie liebt dich” and “Komm gib mir deine Hand”/“I Want to Hold Your Hand”.
Thanks! That opened it up to a few more that I found on search engines,
Ria Solar - Lollipop - [in German] (1958)
The Beach Boys - Ganz Allein - [In My Room]
Peter and Alex - Wir Wollen Nach Haus - [Sloop John B]
Dionne Warwick - Geh Vorbei - [Walk On By]
The Supremes - Where Did Our Love Go?
The Temptations - Mein Girl - [My Girl]
Vierzehn - Stein Um Stein - [Another Brick in the Wall]
12 - GLS United - Rapper’s Deutsch
Seems searching for ‘foreign language tracks’ helps a bit
There’s also of course Nena’s 99 Luftballoons, although that was a German song Americanised, still yiz would get a kick out of it. Also remember to get Rock Me Amadeus.
If you want to forego the camp factor, see if you can find anything by a band called Wir Sind Helden (“We Are Heroes”). It won’t matter if you can’t understand the lyrics, the music rocks.
They are a great band and you reminded me of another one David Bowie’s German version of Heroes, called Helden. Es ist schlecht.
Although Laibach is Slovenian, they mostly use English and German. They covered Queen’s “One Vision” as “Geburt einer Nation” and Opus’ “Live is Life” as “Leben heißt Leben.”
“Tom Dooley” - The German version
“Hier ist die Geschichte von Tom Dooley, aus Tennesse”
Translated: “This is the story of Tom Dooley”… from the Kingston Trio, of course.
I first heard it when my German grandfather played it on a 45, but it stayed with me, and now it is one of my all time favorite tunes to play on the guitar and sing in German.
I know y’all are in the late 20’s and you probably won’t be able to identify with this tune, but I just saw your post, and thought you might be interested.
Also, please check out Falco (if that hasn’t already been mentioned).
Have fun!
Q
I heard a great German rendition of My Ding-a-ling by a hip oompa band back in the 80’s. I told the German Dude I was with that it was an American Song. He refused to believe that Chuck Berry did it. He thought it was a German song.
Hmmm. Think of the rhythm, DK: dot-dot-duh-dah, dot-dot-duh-dah,
dot-dot duh -dah “is the cutest thing”?
Who knows?
Sounds Cherman to me, bei Gott!
J/K
B~
This isn’t exactly what you asked for, but you may want to use some of the music of Trio, who are best known from the Volkswagen ad featuring their song “Da Da Da.”
Oh, my, you have to get ahold of some Max Raabe & Palastorchester. Nice Weimar-swing-style covers of Let’s Talk About Sex and Oops I Did it Again and Super Trooper and Tainted Love and such.
David Bowie recorded “Heroes” in German. Along with just about every other spoken language.
I forget the German translation of the lyrics, but it was damn funny and surreal at the time to hear the song in German, all the way down to the audience singing along with cues and callbacks.
Mein Ding-a-Ling…
Haven’t used this in a while, but ROTFLMAO!!!
Sorry, I’m half-kraut meinself, and that is just damn funny to visualize!!!
MEIN!
Ding-a-Ling
Q
Also originally German and then covered in English, the original Mack the Knife.
Downtown, originally by Petula Clark. No contest. Best German song ever.
Peter Gabriel did at least 1 album completely in German, it included a German version of ‘Shock The Monkey’.
Nina Hagen did 99 red ballons in German
Did you mean Nena, or did Nina Hagen actually cover the song?