WOEBOT

so you didn't like their version of brecht/weill's 'alabama song' then...?

lol! :-)

you exxpect me to be an authority on them now do you!

ha- i put it on the weill tape for you!

Hey,
I really like what you write about NDW normally. But in this case you got it wrong: "Computerstaat" may sound a little like it but is definately not the sound of "German youth" trying to "avenge their fathers". On the contrary: the line goes "Stalingrad, Stalingrad/ Deutschland Katastrophenstaat" which tries to link their vision of a Orwellian surveillance state in mid-80ies Germany to the german past. "Deutschland Katastrophenstaat" is "Germany state of catastrophy" meaning: whatever comes out of this country is running things down. Abwärts were always (and still are) a band of militant leftwingers. This paranoid energy that drives the song goes against the inner enemy. With great lyrics: "Agenten in der Kanalisation", "Paranoia in der Straßenbahn" (secret service agents in the sewers, paranoia in the tramway: sounds stupid in english but in german the rhythm it's great because it has this great rhythm).
Best,
Tobias

Damn, that's one "the rhythm" too many.

Me again, just in case you're interested. That's the lyrics:

Montag klopft es an der Tür
und Arafat steht neben dir
Dienstag gibt es Probealarm
Paranoia in der Straßenbahn
Mittwoch ist der Krieg sehr Kalt
Breschnew lauert in der Badeanstalt

Donnerstag, du weisst es schon
tausend Agenten in der Kanalisation
Freitag gehört der Mafia
das Ravioli kommt aus Florida
Samstag Abend Irrenanstalt
der KGB im deutschen Wald

Sonntag, da ist alles tot
im Golf von Mallorca der Weltkrieg droht
Stalingrad, Stalingrad
Deutschland Katastrophenstaat

Wir leben im Computerstaat

If you translate it, it goes something like this:

On Monday there's a knock on your door
Arafat stands next to you
On Tuesday there's practise alarm
Paranoia in the tramways
On Wednesday the war is cold
Breshnev lurks in the swimming pool

On Thursday you might already know
thousand agents in the sewery system
Friday belongs to the mafia
Ravioli comes from Florida
Saturday evening looney bin
KGB in the german forest

Sunday everything is dead
In the gulf of Mallorca danger of the world war

Stalingrad, Stalingrad
Germany state of catastrophy

Something like this, I'm not a poet.

And by the way, Slime, the other big militant german leftwing punk band from that era did a cover of the song. Not that good though:

ftp://hering.dyndns.org/07%20-%20Slime%20-%20Computerstaat.mp3

thanks tobias. and thanks for the translation. this is good, and this is what comments boxes are for. mine might be a right pain to access, but if the need to append is there, it's available. big up.

i think i suspected as much. it's the atmosphere which intoning those words creates which is so riveting though doncha think? they and the desperation with which they're intoned leap out of the track.

You're right, it's all about the athmosphere - especially when you compare the Abwärts version with the Slime version. With Abwärts it's all tightness and sparsness. Paranoia and nihilism. You have all these media images connected with day-to-day experiences. And it sounds like this. You can't locate the enemy because he's everywhere. Slime are much simpler. They know where the enemy is. It's much more classical punkrock in a sense that they want to fight the system and that's it. So they have more guitars. More open aggression.