Ich hab' heute nichts versaumt

Sorry.

The song got stuck in my head coming out of the market the other day and I've been unable to get it unstuck so I figured I'd share it. I'd say "you're welcome" but I guess if I'm consistent I should offer, rather, nichts zu danken.

It almost got me into trouble since I have a tendency when this sort of thing happens to make a small movie in my head, starring my inside voice, where I shout out 'C'mon everybody you know the words!' and a wonderful singalong ensues (though the complementary choreography is always beyond the production budget). This time I looked up and into an oil painting of very frowny and dour faces and realized I wasn't positive I'd actually used my inside voice. I hate when that happens.

The thing I did figure was the chances of a random crowd of folks in a grocery store in Norwich, Connecticut actually knowing the words to a tune that hit #2 in the Deutsche Top Twenty in 1982 were between 'slim' and 'none' (downhill, with a stiff breeze, on a really good day).

I was going to offer 99 Luftballons as a consolation prize (there was an English version; I don't particularly like it but it'll do I suppose) but concluded for this crowd, it was difference without distinction. Es ist irgendwie schade als gibts viel gute musik in anderen sprache als English aber davon weissen wir fast nichts.

We're not a nation that does a lot of embracing of other folks' songs in other than our own language (don't offer me The Singing Nun (this is spookiest version of this I could ever imagine) or Wayne Newton (pretty creepy in its own right) as demonstrations of cosmopolitan coolness).

Most of what's on the radio, terrestrial or satellite, when it's music, is English only. Okay, there's a huge Spanish language market but it also isn't interested in building bridges beyond its core audience. When you realize all the places we come from, it's a little sad we miss out on so much because we don't share...be it music, art, dance or literature.

We all look the same from space-it's only as you make your final approach that our differences, at first just, ghostly turned--well, let's see how long that one remains stuck, eh?

-bill kenny