Leopard Skin

 

Until the early 80s, all I knew about Cologne was that they had a good football team and several carnival bands. That changed abruptly when German bands started singing in their native language. The Cologne band BAP rose to fame in the wake of this scene. I saw them back then in a small club in Stuttgart and thought they were pretty decent for a local band playing mainstream. At that time, the peace movement was very popular. Wolfgang Niedecken, the founder of BAP, emerged as the political conscience of an entire generation that demonstrated against the stationing of Pershings in Germany and the phasing out of nuclear energy. I could identify with many of their ideas and goals at the time, but at the same time my ambivalent relationship with Cologne developed. The reason for this was that people from Cologne have an inflated sense of self-worth and fundamentally reject everything that doesn't come from Cologne or consider it inferior. I have always found it difficult to come to terms with this attitude. But back to the music. Many of BAP's songs have long since become popular favourites. Most of them aren't even that bad, but the bottom line is that they are often banal. In 1995, Niedecken, who considers himself an avowed fan of Bob Dylan, released an album on which he performs Dylan songs in Cologne dialect. And I recently listened to this record again and thought that every artist can probably produce a highlight once in their life. All the cover versions are superbly performed and arranged, but the way Dylan's lyrics have been translated into German is sensational. They were not translated word for word, but the poetry of the songs was brought out - even if it is often difficult for me as a South German to understand. All in all, My Back Pages, Jokerman and Absolutely Sweet Marie in these versions are classics that I always return to