Silly Little Country

One Small Case in the Complexity of Creative Destruction

I am reading Tyler Cowen's "Creative Destruction" and it reminds me in the most amazing ways I have stumbled across in some of the most interesting parts of my personal life.

Part of his theme is how local cultures change to adapt in brilliant ways the other influences they see. Moreover, he nicely challenges any notion of a national or tribal culture of any useful long-run significance. (He might not want it characterized that way, but I measure it against the cultural conservatives.)

I am tempted to do some exercises in that notion, though maybe not so carefully as he has looked at theory.

But I have hit cases that thrilled me since attaching myself to SillyWife.

For a bunch of other reasons, I think this a fine video from Austria. It challenges a lot of notions as it is clearly about not just "German" music (they are Austrian) versus the world, but mostly about local Austrian (these guys are from the south) versus Vienna (the cultural centre).

Let me do an analysis of this utterly challenging and brilliant video. I am stealing lyrics from OLEO so they may vanish. I am doing the translation and cannot promise I am right and invite correction. I know how much they astonished me when I first heard them. And even in the hours since starting this somewhat dynamic post it has come to mean a lot more to me, and in particular its reference to Bob Dylan has become so much clearer.

(Added in an update: The song directly references "Blowing in the Wind" and later references the wind; even more crucially, it is the story of someone not unlike Robert Zimmerman who left Hibbing, Minnesota, definitely the provinces in the USA, for New York. Worked out better for Zimmerman.)

A number of things stand out - they start with electric guitars! Well, actually they start a capella and singing about busking. And this is about the video not just the song. No tourist has been at the top of the Kaertnerstrasse (main shopping street of Austria) can fail to recognize these guys.

OK here is the video link.


And he is not doing to well. Opening a capella:
Langsam find't der Tag sei End und die Nacht beginnt
Slowly the day comes to an end and the night begins
In der Kärtnerstrass'n do singt aner "Blowing in the wind"
In the Kaertnerstrasse a guy is singing "Blowing in the Wind"
Hat a greanes Röckerl an, steht da ganz verlorn
He is wearing a green outfit and stands there lost (SillyWife and I think this is a suggestion of traditonal countryish Loden)
Und der Steffl der schaut owi auf den oarmen Steirerbuam
and the St Stephens Cathedral looks down on this poor Steirer (meaning he is from a southern province, Styria)
Er hat woin sei glück probieren in der großen fremden Stadt,
He wanted to try out his luck in the big strange city
had glaubt sei musik bring eam aufs Rennbahnexpress Titelblatt
Hoped his music would put him on the cover of the Rennbahexpress magazine (roughly a Rolling Stone)
aus der Traum zerplatz die Seifenblasn nix is bliem
From that dream the soap bubble exploded into nothing
ois wir a paar schüling in seim gitarrenkoffer drin
All he got was a few schillings in his guitar case
*** Just guitars coming in now ****
Wochenlang steh i scho do
For weeks I have been standing here
Wochenlang plog i mi o
For weeks I have been playing my heart out
I spuil mia die Finger wund
I played my fingers to soreness
Und sing sogor "Do kummt die Sunn"
And even sang "Here comes the Sun" (There is a joke here - seems STS played that as a cover favorite in their early days)

Doch es is zum narrisch wern
But now it is getting crazy
Kaner will mi singen hearn
Nobody wants to hear me anymore
Langsam kriag i wirklich gnua
Fore a while I have been getting fed up
I frog mi wos i do dua
I wonder what I am doing here
da geht den ganzn tog da wind
The wind blows all day long
nix als baustelln das ka mensch was find
Construction sites everywhere make it impossible to find your way
die burn-häusln san ein grauss
This is all just gross (Burnheidl = Burenwurst = Bratwurst)
und im Kaffeehaus brenns' di aus
And in the coffee houses they just burn you for money
Now enters bass guitar oom-pah-pahing a bit
I will wieder ham, fühl mi do so allan
I want to go home, I feel so alone
I brauch ka grosse Welt, i will ham nach Fürstenfeld
I don't need a bigger world, I want to go home to Fuerstenfeld
Something oom-pah-pah in the bac but I think it is gutiar.
In der Zeitung da ham'S gschriem
The papers said
Da gibts a Szene do muasst hin
There is a Scene there, you have to go there

Was die wolln des soin die schreim
They can write what they want
Mia ka de Szene g'stoin bleim
I don't care about the "Scene"

Da geh i gestern ins U4
I went down into the U4 (some club)
Fangt a Diandl a zum redn mit mir
And a chick started to chat with me
Schwoarze Lipp'n grüne Hoar
Black lips and green hair!
Do kannst ja Angst kriang wirklich woahr
That can freak a guy out
I will wieder ham, fühl mi do so allan
I want to go home, I feel so alone
I brauch ka grosse Welt, i will ham nach Fürstenfeld
I don't need a bigger world, I want to go home to Fuerstenfeld
Accordion enters!
Niemals spiel i mehr in Wien
I will never play again in Vienna
Wien hat mi gor ned verdient
Vienna does not deserve me
I spiel höchstens no in Graz
From now I will play at the best in Graz (The capital of his province, Styria, not national)
Sinabelkirchen und Stinatz
Names of towns even more obscure and in the middle of nowhere in the south of Austria
Guitar even more oom pah pah
I brauch kan Gürtel i brauch kan Ring
I don't need the outside ring or the Inside ring
I will z'ruck hintern Semmering
I want to get back past Semmering
I brauch nur des bissl Göid
I just need the little money
Für die Fahrt nach Fürstenfeld
For the trip back to Fuerstenfeld
All translated above
Deeply Oom Pah Pah!
I will wieder ham, fühl mi do so allan
I brauch ka grosse Welt, i will ham nach Fürstenfeld
I will wieder ham, fühl mi do so allan
I brauch ka grosse Welt, i will ham nach Fürstenfeld
Again, above.
I don't need a bigger world, I want to go to home to Fuerstenfeld.
Tuba sound at the end.

I think this is the smartest song I know on this theme. And what is the theme? What is the larger versus the smaller world? They are one of the many great groups from Austria in one phase that insisted on singing in their dialects, and this is a very subtle song about the conflict involved, as they absorbed all the other manifestations of the outside world (outside Austria), like rock guitars, mixed with oom-pah-pah guitars. Moreover, as their commitment to going home grows, the instrumentation shifts slightly back to oom-pah-pah bands, which are also a somewhat recent invention (accordions and tubas are surely mid-19th-century).

It is worth watching the video against the lyrics as the geography is done brilliantly, including the train station to go home.

The pure old culture never existed, nor does today's.

By contrast, the less interesting Canadian artists of that time just did what those in the US were doing and did it better, with the exception of Buffy Ste-Marie, who did something different, and better than anybody in North America.

And these guys did not retreat to Fuerstenfeld. More later, as Tyler inspires me.

UPDATE 1: fixed up Rennbahnexpress line
UPDATE 2 : linked the Rennbahexpress in and also added a suggestion regarding the meaning of the green outfit (tx SillyWife). Also added some text regarding what I meant by outside world.
UPDATE 3: The video is inconsistent with my interpretation of the U4 as a subway station - in any case it is a subway line. So I changed the line about the scene - whatever the U4 was it was surely part of it.
UPDATE 4: It would be crazy to think the early mention of "Blowing in the Wind" is not a key part of their thinking. I imagine they knew Bobby Zimmerman came from nowhere in the heartland of Minnesota. He never wanted to go back. :-)
UPDATE 5: Changin the translation of hochstens to "at most".
UPDATE 6: Incorporating the great help of commenter rm
UPDATE 7: Expanding the Bob Dylan connection a bit.
UPDATE 8: Changed to vaguer wording about the obscure towns they plan to play in

posted by Alan Adamson @ 3:27 PM