"Rammstein" is a song by the German Industrial metal band Rammstein. It is the eleventh and final track on their debut album Herzeleid and was the first song written by the band. It is essentially about the Ramstein airshow disaster. According to an interview with rhythm guitarist Paul Landers the sound of the main riff of the song is made by him and lead guitarist, Richard Kruspe each playing a similar riff with different octaves (Richard plays the middle and Paul plays the lower).
In the Live aus Berlin performance of the song, lead vocalist Till Lindemann ascends from underneath the stage, via a trap door. He wears a burning coat, and special goggles from which a laser beam is projected, from one of the lenses. When they performed the song in the 2004-05 "Reise Reise" tour, Till no longer wore the flaming jacket, opting instead for dual arm mounted flame throwers.
Rammstein has been a part of every tour setlist since the song's inception, including the Pre-Herzeleid years. The only tour it has not been included in is their current tour for Liebe ist für alle da although it has made an appearance at some shows, including their 2010 headline performance at Rock Werchter in Belgium.
Controversies
The New York Times described Rammstein's music as a "powerful strain of brutally intense rock... bringing gale-force music and spectacular theatrics together".The members have not been shy about courting controversy and have periodically attracted condemnation from morality campaigners. Till and Flake's stage act earned them a night in jail in June 1999 after a liquid-ejecting dildo was used in a concert in Worcester, Massachusetts. Back home in Germany,the band has faced repeated accusations of fascist sympathies because of the dark and sometimes militaristic imagery of their videos and concerts, including the use of excerpts from the film Olympia by Leni Riefenstahl in the video for the Depeche Mode cover "Stripped". Their cover of their debut album Herzeleid,released in Germany in 1995, showed the band members bare-chested in a style that resembled Strength Through Joy in the eyes of some critics, who accused the band of trying to sell themselves as "poster boys for the Master Race".Rammstein have vigorously denied this and said that they want nothing to do with politics or supremacy of any kind. Christian "Flake" Lorenz, annoyed by the claim, has remarked that it is just a photo, and should be understood as such.Herzeleid has since been given a different cover in North America, depicting the band members' faces. The clip for the song Amerika shows people from different nationalities throughout the video and Rammstein members taking photographs with them at the end of the clip.
The song "Links 2-3-4" (Links being German for "left") was written as a riposte to these claims. According to Kruspe, it means, "'My heart beats on the left, two, three, four'. It's simple. If you want to put us in a political category, we're on the left side, and that's the reason we made the song".On the other hand, this is also an allusion to a military marching cadence since "Links-2-3-4" is typically heard during marching practice in the German army with "links" referring to the left foot. The song is also a reference to the saying "the heart beats left", repeatedly used by Oskar Lafontaine, a famous former member of the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany), who was the co-chairman of the Left Party (Die Linke), and almost the title of a book written by him (the title is Das Herz schlägt links instead of Mein Herz schlägt links – "The heart beats left" instead of "My Heart beats left").
According to the German online music magazine Rammstein, through this song, positioned themselves on the side of Oskar Lafontaine. They write:
Rammstein binden den Lafontaine-Spruch "Mein Herz schlägt links" in ihren Text ein und zitieren eine Zeile aus einem alten Hannes Wader-Arbeitersong ("Links, zwo, drei, vier; links, zwo, drei, vier; wo dein Platz Genosse ist, reih Dich ein in die Arbeitereinheitsfront, wenn Du auch ein Arbeiter bist"). (Rammstein embed the Lafontaine saying My heart beats left into their lyric and cite a line of an old Hannes Wader workers' song ("Left, 2, 3, 4; left 2, 3, 4; where your place is comrade, line up into the Workers' United Front, if you are a worker").)
Christian "Flake" Lorenz recently stated on an online chat that the song was created to show that the band could write a harsh, evil, military-sounding song that was not about Nazi ideals.
Relation to violent events
Rammstein were cited in relation to the Columbine High School Massacre in 1999, when photos of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold wearing Rammstein T-shirts were revealed.Though there was no evidence to correlate the two events, the band felt obliged to issue a statement:
"The members of Rammstein express their condolences and sympathy to all affected by the recent tragic events in Denver. They wish to make it clear that they have no lyrical content or political beliefs that could have possibly influenced such behaviour. Additionally, members of Rammstein have children of their own, in whom they continually strive to instill healthy and non-violent values".
Coincidentally, on September 10, 2001 the single and video clip of Ich will ("I Want") was released which portrays the band as bank robbers who want to get a message across and receiving a Goldene Kamera (Golden Camera) award, a German version of the Emmy award, for their "actions". In the United States the video clip was broadcast only late at night after the attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York City although many media officials and politicians requested the video to be pulled from broadcast completely.
Following the conclusion of the Beslan school hostage crisis in Russia in September 2004, the Russian authorities claimed that the terrorists had "listened to German hard rock group Rammstein on personal stereos during the siege to keep themselves edgy and fired up".The claim has not been independently confirmed.
Band members said this about the issue:
"There's been a lot of talk about that, but if there are radical feelings in people anything can wake them – a painting, a picture, whatever. It's just a coincidence that it happened to be our music. It's important to think about what caused them to make their decisions, how they became animals, not their taste in music. Whenever something like this happens it's like 'Okay, let's blame the artist'. Such bullshit. (Till Lindemann).
"Our music is made to release aggression, and people listening to it are also needed to do that, but it's not our fault. Should we stop making hard music because bad people might like it?" (Christoph "Doom" Schneider).
Pekka-Eric Auvinen, the perpetrator of the Jokela school shooting in November 2007, also included Rammstein in one of his favorite bands. He noted, though, that the music among other things was not to blame for his decisions.
Band members
Till Lindemann – lead vocals
Richard Z. Kruspe – lead guitar, backing vocals
Paul H. Landers – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Oliver "Ollie" Riedel – bass guitar
Christoph "Doom" Schneider – drums, percussion
Christian "Flake" Lorenz – keyboards, samples
ScReEn ShOts
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