It is time for another #ThreeTuneTuesday. For those not familiar with it, here's an explanation.
About 85 Weeks ago @ablaze started this incredible movement:
Every Tuesday I'm going to share 3 songs which I like to listen to and I invite your feedback in the comments below. Or why not have a blast of your own Three Tune Tuesday and mention me in the post and I'll come and find the post and hopefully upvote it. It'll be a sweet way for us all to discover new music.
Second week into the new year. Didn't we all make new years resolutions? How is yours coming along? 😉
Many chose "Trying something new" as a task for the new year, not seldom complemented by a measure of frequency like "every day/week/month". But why force it? Why not just be open to new things?
I often proclaim "I listen to rock music" when in fact I listen to lot of other music as well.
I often proclaim "I don't like hip-hop/rap" when in fact I do listen to such music every now and then.
So today's theme: My first time enjoying hip-hop!
Psssst: Don't tell anyone or my rock music image might be ruined. 😉
In 1989 the band (or is it called group in hip-hop?) "Die Fantastischen Vier" (The Fantastic Four) came together and in 1992 they conquered the charts with "Die da?!" (That one?!)
So even I could not avoid it and had to admit: I liked it. It was catchy and the lyrics captured our spirit.
The two main singers go back and forth. First, one tells about this wonderful woman he met and how. Then they go into the chorus in which the other one asks "Is it that one?" over and over again, pointing at different women, searching for her. They conclude by saying "She has never time on Fridays".
Even though different in detail, the second stanza is a mirror of the first one, both singers switch places. We come into the same chorus again and at this point we figure out where things are going.
The bridge contains an interesting element: The German dub from Star Wars IV (A new hope) with Luke in front of R2-D2 asking "Who is she? She's beautiful" after watching Leia's brief message to Obi-Wan can be heard several times.
Finally one of the guys spots his new girlfriend and the other one replies that it is the same woman he was talking about. They wonder about the man accompanying her and come to the conclusion, that he is the reason, she has never time on Fridays.
Why am I telling you all this?
This song had a great impact on my generation. The phrase "Ist es die da?" (Is it that one?), while talking about a woman, was immediately associated with that song and its implications.
Whenever a girlfriend told a boyfriend she won't have time on Friday (for whatever reason), this song was triggered.
Relationships in the 90's got a lot more complicated because of this song. 🤣
But at our age, not all relationships were meant to last. And 1995 the Fanta4 (it became a common abbreviation for their name) delivered us additional means to cope with such losses.
"Sie ist weg" (She is gone) was direct, it was honest. It expressed the pain while also (it actually contains that line) told us "to stop whining".
And the honesty continued when looking for the reason of the breakup.
More often than not the guy was to blame. Especially at that age we were in. But he girls did their part as well every now and then for everything to go up in flames.
As big as our individual pain or gain might be, the world never stops turning. And during the 90's it seemed like it was speeding up more and more.
One aspect of that was that more and more abbreviations and acronyms entered our lives. Cellphones became common and instead of those chat-messengers we were limited to SMS (Short Message Service).
But you had to limit yourself to 160 letters. Welcome to a brave new world. We finished with a HDL (Hab dich lieb - rather subtle/soft version of "I love you") for our loved ones or MFG (Mit freundlichen Grüßen - With kind regards) for all others.
Leave it to those crazy guys from Fanta4 to make a song about that and even name it MFG.
But not just any song. The stanzas are just a list of abbreviation we all encounter(ed) in our daily life. TV-Stations, sales companies, several (N)GO (hahaha, there's another one; oh, TV is also one; see how they just slip through now?).
Only the chorus is "coherent" text consisting of a few lines making fun of the abbreviation madness.
I hope you enjoyed this journey through the German 90's with me and the Fanta4 and my first time deviating from my usual genre.
Thank you for reading and listening.
Keep on rocking 🤘
MFG - CU
The embedded videos and songs are not mine, nor do I own any rights to them. They are embedded from youtube and serve an illustrative purpose for this article