Photo: Still from ‘Peter Fox – Schwarz zu Blau’
It won’t have escaped anyone’s attention in Berlin that what may have seemed like an endless winter could finally be over. Temperatures have leapt from single digits to nudge the Mercury at 20ºC so it seemed appropriate then that the second instalment in my Berlin Songs series should be Peter Fox – Schwarz zu Blau.
I’m a Berlin enthusiast so I will love the city come rain or shine but it’s so much easier to love when the sun is out. As soon as temperatures climbed into double figures Berliners sat outside cafés and bars and there was a buzz about the place again. The seemingly solar-powered beautiful people emerged from their winter hibernations and the streets rang with the sound of bicycle bells.
Schwarz zu Blau tells the story of a man noticing some of Berlin’s less pleasant aspects as he drunkenly stumbles out of a club at 5:30 in the morning and walks home as the city changes from black to blue.
Despite the ugliness he has noted though, his true feelings for the city emerge in the last lines:
Doch die Sonne geht gerade auf
Und ich weiß, ob ich will oder nicht
dass ich dich zum Atmen brauch (brauch, brauch, brauch…)
Which with my poor German skills I would translate as:
But the sun is just rising
And I know, whether I like it or not
That I need you to breathe (need, need, need…)
Peter Fox is a member of the successful Berlin band Seeed but Schwarz zu Blau is taken from his 2007 solo album Stadtaffe (English translation – Urban Ape).
Peter Fox – Schwarz zu Blau
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