Bernd Begemann, the Udo Jürgens of the independent scene.
Photo: dpa/Markus Scholz
The common songwriter plays the same boot all his life. He has to do that because otherwise his followers will be angry. Some Stones disciples have never forgiven their body and stomach band for their excursions into disco realms (“Miss you”, “Emotional rescue”). Marius Müller-Westernhagen can also tell you a thing or two about it. When he released an exciting synthpop album with “Lausige Times” in 1986, the fans punished him with withdrawal of love. Afterwards, Westernhagen put on the leather jacket and limited himself to shouting along to stadium visitors.
Even the incorruptible Bernd Begemann knows how far he can go with his followers. When his image of St. Pauli had long since changed fundamentally, he still played the myth-soaked “Oh, St. Pauli” (1996) at concerts. The much more critical gentrification indictment »St. Pauli spat us out” (2015) would probably have disturbed some of the viewers.
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Because of course Begemann fans have a precise idea of what “their Bernd” should sound like. He is the man for the private, for the small details. For relationship stories, for everyday observations. The sensitive person who, even when watching television, noticed details that we would never have noticed. It never seemed cynical, at most self-deprecating.
Especially live. On stage he was the star of the anti-stars. The Udo Jürgens of the independent scene. The big gestures slipped the decisive centimeter for him. Which made him even more likeable. And by the time he took off his jacket after the third song with the words: “I wanted to embody style and class, and now I’m sweating like a pig,” he had the audience on his side.
His album “A Short List of Demands” came as even more of a surprise. The text of “The rich have won” could also have come from Franz Josef Degenhardt. One would never have expected him, the supposedly apolitical man, to be so anti-capitalist. And in some songs he displayed a sarcasm that was understandable but also irritating. Lines like “I’ve made peace with the asshole from Deutsche Bank who stole our house from my parents; “He probably just had to fulfill certain requirements” didn’t sound at all like the understanding humanitarian that he was remembered as.
That was at the end of 2015. At the beginning of 2018 he released the unplugged album “The City and the Girl” with Kai Dorenkamp (member of his band “Die Liberation”) – old pieces were re-sung and accompanied only by the piano. Corona came again two years later. Bernd Begemann bought an OLED television with a screen diagonal of around two meters and did what many musicians did back then: somehow persevere.
And keep a clear head. In November 2021, he posted on Facebook the sign of a pastry shop whose owner gave up because of the Corona measures. Begemann’s sobering comment: “I didn’t screw it up. Richard David Precht, Sahra Wagenknecht and Jan Josef Liefers screwed it up. Holistic anthroposophists have screwed this up. All fellow citizens have screwed up who don’t understand that we are not in an ambivalent situation, but in a binary one: Will you get vaccinated to end the danger? Yes or no?” He had to realize that there were people in his circle of acquaintances who were mentally drifting away. But to this day he relies on the power of arguments: “I talk to everyone. Sometimes you can bring people back, sometimes they embrace their new madness with joy, then you have to let them go.”
What remains is hope. On his new album “Milieu” he sings: “Improvement comes slowly, step by step. I know that sounds lame: but join in! Moderate is the new radical.” At first you swallow. With such “Explicit Lyrics” he goes one step further than 2015. Or way back. Pieces with an appeal character are more commonly known from songwriters of the 70s who wanted to reach a specific audience. Begemann, on the other hand, was the man for everyone. The songwriter you could agree on. It’s different this time, and that’s how he explains the album title: “Many songs penetrate a certain milieu.”
After all, so much has happened since 2015. Unfortunately, also privately. Bernd Begemann is single again. It happened before that he talked about personal things during his stage appearances, for example about the failed relationship with his daughter’s mother. But on the plate he kept his distance. The self in songs like “I can’t get you, Katrin” sounded fictitious despite all the fervor. Secretly you thought: Maybe he got her after all. And when the good-looking Bernd Begemann sang: “We are twice second choice, we are an unattractive couple,” then it had a touch of coquetry.
But ambivalence – see above – no longer fits these times. Clarity is required. “It’s been a while since I was so brave and strong – I can’t be alone anymore.” What he wants: “Another person who doesn’t reduce you. A community that makes you better than you were.” Can it be made any clearer than that? Here you go: “I need to be touched, by a person and an idea.”
Yes, even his ode to bed, screen and refrigerator (the three lifelines when you’re in danger of sinking) turns out to be less ironic than expected. What should you think of the following lines? »Hello world, please leave me alone. (…) Because I’m a completely useless creature.” The following “And that’s OK” lets you breathe a sigh of relief – Bernd Begemann is not Ian Curtis (Joy Division), but rather Dragoslav Stepanović (Eintracht Frankfurt): “Lebbe is going again. «
The music goes with that too. Of course, as on every Begemann album, there are a few slower, more playful tracks. But this time the basic tone is shakier, more garish, less poppy. His “White Album” was “a short list of demands,” a grab bag of 28 loosely thrown-in songs (“I could release an album with new songs every week”). “Milieu” only contains half of the pieces. It seems more compact not only lyrically but also musically. When asked why it took him over eight years to produce an album of new compositions, Bernd Begemann answers: “I first had to orient myself in this new streaming era and find a few resources.”
Which means something like: Where money is getting tighter, you have to think carefully about what you put on CD. Culinarily speaking, if “A Short List of Demands” was a big cauldron of gazpacho, then “Milieu” is a pesto. A concentrate. There is no word or sound too many here. Bernd Begemann said what he had to say. It’s quite possible that some of his fans will rub their ears in surprise.
Bernd Begemann & die Freireung: »Milieu« (Brilliant Sounds)
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