Book Chapter

Konstantin Wecker: Political Songs between Anarchy and Humanity

Blühdorn, Annette

2012

Overview

When in 1977 the Bavarian singer-songwriter Konstantin Wecker (born 1947) made his breakthrough with his song \"Willy,\" he was at once categorized as a political singer, following in the footsteps of the singer-songwriters of the student movement. As a result, political parties of the left tried to monopolize him, while for the right-wing scene he developed into \"eine Haßfigur.\" \"Willy,\" a talking-blues about the death of a young man who was killed during an argument with neo-Nazis, has always been regarded as a political song. However, Wecker himself has quite a different view of \"Willy.\" The song, he declares, relates to a real event, and also has traces of autobiography. More than a political song, he considers it an emotional expression of an intense personal experience. In an interview in 1998, Wecker explained: \"Das Lied 'Willy' ist zwar ein politisches Lied, aber es ist ein innerliches Lied. Es geht um eine, ja eine Liebesbeziehung zu einem Freund und um einen großen Zwiespalt in der eigenen Seele.\" The different viewpoints on \"Willy\" reveal a general peculiarity of Wecker's political songs: although they express criticism of the political system, the key issue of Wecker's thinking and writing has always been the self-determination of the individual, and very clearly of Wecker himself. In his political songs, Wecker is not concerned with political ideologies, which, on the contrary, he disdains. His songs are therefore different from those of political singer-songwriters of the late 1960s and 1970s such as Degenhardt, Mossmann, and Süverkrüp.

• Publisher: Boydell and Brewer Limited
• Subject: European and world literature / European literature