Recently, on the other hand, I was struck by the vast repertoire of songs that my two daughters (ten and fourteen years old), to whom I already owe many an insight into language, can sing – or even rap – along to. And we could always blame our bad schoolteachers for failing to kindle our enthusiasm for foreign languages. Now, Matthias Brandt and I are part of a generation that grew up before globalization – in an age in which mastering a foreign language was “cool” or proof of being cultivated, but not yet a must. He didn’t know that the blackbird in Paul McCartney's lyrics symbolizes an American woman “of colour” subjected to everyday discrimination.

Matthias Brandt recalls in an interview that, as a young man, he didn’t really get the lyrics. The novel’s title is from the eponymous Beatles song. I would certainly have kept this lifelong ignorance to myself had I not recently read Blackbird, a novel by Matthias Brandt, one of the best and most famous German actors these days – and, by the way, a son of Willy Brandt, who was chancellor from 1969 to 1974. To this day I still don't know the exact lyrics and what they mean, and I still resist the temptation to look them up on the web.

About cats, of course, about “missing” and “kissing” you, in other words about love and longing, but I didn't want to know a whole lot more than that at the time. If you’re familiar with the song’s tricky rhythm, you’ll know what I mean. I remember dancing in the kitchen to The Lovecats by The Cure when I was thirteen – or at least trying to. But sometimes he’s delighted to discover the poetry of pop songs.Įver since I started listening closely to pop songs, I’ve had a hard time getting the words. When looks them up on the Internet, he’s sometimes unpleasantly surprised. What are they actually singing about? Thomas Böhm admits that he doesn’t always get the words to pop songs.

Sing along with lyrics