Udo Lindenberg

Name: Udo Lindenberg – Alles klar auf der Andrea Doria
Item: Alles klar auf der Andrea Doria
Author: Michele Corrado

Alles klar auf der Andrea Doria

1973 (Telefunken)

German rock

by Michele Corrado

Udo Lindenberg's third album, and the first credited jointly to his backing band, the Panik Orchester, is to all intents and purposes one of the records that inaugurated the great era of German-language rock; back home it's commonly grouped under the banner German rock (which krautrock doesn't belong to, first because it's too niche, second because it's stylistically distant, and third because it's often sung in English, when not entirely instrumental).

Of course, by the time it came out Lindenberg himself had already released two albums, and other foundational acts like Ton Steine Scherben and Lied des Teufels had already taken their first steps; still, when you think of rock in its German-speaking guise, you can't help but shine a light on the role played by "Alles klar auf der Andrea Doria", the record that opened up a whole new market for this kind of music.

Not only is it one of the first masterpieces of German rock, but it's also a work deeply tied to the local situation of its time. Painter, thinker, social-democratic activist and drummer, an artist tout court then, Udo Lindenberg crystallizes in his work, with no shortage of imagination and brilliant allegorical choices, the political condition of a country still marked by deep social and cultural rifts, as well as by Germany's post-war division into West Germany and the GDR.

A native of Gronau, in the wealthy steel-producing land of North Rhine-Westphalia, Lindenberg played, as drummer and secondarily as singer, in countless jazz-rock outfits on the German scene. Between 1970 and 1972 his name turns up on records by Niagara, Free Orbit, Doldinger's Motherhood, Passport, Emergency and Kravetz.

When, however, he tries to build a solo career, he moves away from jam and improvisation, attempting a middle path between rock and singer-songwriter fare. Traces of jazz keep surfacing here and there in the arrangements, but without altering the structure of the songs any further.

The early-career Lindenberg is an artist fully aware of the fragility of Germany's political situation, but he often looks and sings towards the other side of the country, dreaming that rock might tear down the social and economic barriers raised after the partition.

He's joined by Steffi Stephan (bass), Thomas Kretschmer (guitars), Karl Allaut (guitars) and Gottfried Böttger (keyboards), musicians he'd met partly through the bands he'd already played in and partly because they were already established session players. Besides singing and playing drums, Lindenberg also sits at the console, alongside Thomas Kukuck, whom he'd met back in his Kravetz days and who would go on to produce Novalis.

“Alles klar auf der Andrea Doria” is marked by a mature, contaminated approach to its subject matter. Lindenberg and the Panik Orchester choose the song format as their favored vehicle for delivering their messages, and for symbolic reasons alike they cite the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, but they draw on sounds and solutions borrowed from progressive, arrangements for both acoustic and electronic keyboards, lush brass surges jazzy and chamber strings, as well as filtered vocals and psychedelic quirks.

Over such versatile foundations, Lindenberg lays down his finest words, ending up crafting a parade of cult songs in German music, a couple of which later became classics for the wider public too. The singer-songwriter from the Ruhr doesn't take a metaphorical approach to writing; he is instead a lyricist devoted to building images and scenarios, able to immerse the listener in the most disparate settings: a ship in full celebration, the dreamy grey of Alexanderplatz, the back alley of a residential neighborhood in northwestern Germany. His engaging rhymes hit straight to the point, moving and stirring the conscience.

At the “Zio Pö” a band of pensioners

has been playing dixieland for twenty years,

they even have a groupie,

her name is Rosa or something like that

and she dances on the table like a cabaret dancer.

And then there's Paula from St. Pauli

who's always stripping,

and Lola celebrates her birthday

and drinks to the fact

that she will truly be as old as she already looks

These are the words that, together with a sprightly rock'n'roll built in unison by guitar, brass and piano, carry us aboard the transatlantic liner that gives the album its title, as well as its opening track of the same name — the same ship that Lindenberg and his rock pirates are shown steering with delight on the cover.

It's a festive scene, though heavy with nostalgic overtones, but above all it's a snapshot of the instant before the tragedy. The characters described are unaware of the crash the ship, built in Genoa, would suffer on its voyage to New York, when its metal hull would be torn open by the bow of the motor vessel Stockholm, leaving fifty-one lives lost at sea. The proud, tragic voyage of the Italian-flagged ship thus becomes an allegory for a country that keeps moving forward, drawing strength amid countless difficulties, feigning security and integrity.

They keep pouring down groove, riffs of guitar, and even a few flashes of synthesizer, in the following "Boogie Woogie-Mädchen", a sort of rock manifesto in which Lindenberg introduces himself and the band to listeners, while in the third track, titled "Nichts haut einen Seemann um", the wind of the North Sea blows.

The boats are still out at sea,

the bar is still empty,

save for the old captain.

He's always there,

he doesn't sail anymore,

he sits there every afternoon and sips his rum

and after the third glass he starts singing softly

Nothing knocks down a sailor

and dreams of his better days

Lindenberg's words grow more sorrowful, his songwriter's gaze pensively recounting the tale of an old adventurer. Subdued, slow and briny, Panik Orchester leans on the melancholy cadence of acoustic guitar and accordion to build a hazy, wistful seaside scene, before flooding the finale with synth hisses and distorted guitar solos. We're only at the third track, and "Alles klar auf der Andrea Doria" already counts among the best opening tracks and one of the finest ballads of the entire German rock.

The other standout in this category is "Cello", which over time has earned its reputation as a classic of German songwriting.

And today you live in Erfurt

and your cello sits in the cellar.

Come on, take it out again

and play it beautifully like you used to.

You used to play the cello

in every hall around our town,

I always sat in the front row

and found you so thrilling

Opened by a melancholy cello phrase that grows ever more laden with sorrow as the song unfolds, "Cello" tells the story of a fan's admiration for a cellist from his hometown, whom he follows devotedly to every concert she gives, until the day she moves away and hangs up her bow for good. At this point in the story, the sound of the cello becomes the sound of youthful memories, and the man addresses a desperate plea to the musician. It's here that the adoration for the performer transfigures into adoration for music itself and its evocative power.

Melancholy, whether steeped in hope or disillusionment, also sits at the heart of other songs. It looms large in the hopeful "Wir wollen doch einfach nur zusammen sein", where amid languid riffs guitar and tolling piano notes the protagonist dreams of a concert in Alexanderplatz where the Rolling Stones can share the stage with a band from Moscow. It's more insidious when it slips through the harmonica gusts of "Er wollte nach London", the story of a young man whose endless travels and shifting perspectives failed to resolve a deep existential crisis:

He's been to London and to Paris

He's visited many great cities

He's slept on the hard benches of so many parks

And on soft breasts of water

And he felt that, somehow, what he was searching for,

what he really wanted,

wasn't actually clear to him yet

When the scene isn't dominated by political visions of unity and solidarity, grand introspective flights, or stories fished out from the faces of an imaginary — but not too imaginary — crowd, Lindenberg and his band stoke the unquenchable fire of rock'n'roll.

It's from this fundamental point that the crazed nursery rhyme "Du heißt jetzt Jeremias" takes off, a pastiche psychedelic piece full of filtered voices and cowbells in which Lindenberg is anointed as Germany's rockstar by an angel, living out the role as a kind of blasphemous mission.

The other night at a quarter to four

I had a vision.

Suddenly an angel appeared at my door

and asked for my opinion.

He was white as a bedsheet and white was his robe,

he raised his silvery hand

and told me: good morning, you've been chosen,

the world needs a new messiah.

Then he shaved my head

and said: your name is no longer Udo,

now you're called Geremia

In “Dr. Chicago” a scorching sax and a boogie-woogie piano boogie-woogie sizzle to an agitated beat rhythm and blues, a statement of intent through which the artist stages the liberating role of music for the young.

Further enriching the bag of influences is a bizarre closer – halfway between parochialism and self-parody – entrusted to the 48 ramshackle seconds of “Die größte Liebe”, a full-blown schlager .

Where the previous “Daumen im Wind” (1972) sold barely seven thousand copies, “Alles klar auf der Andrea Doria” marks Lindenberg's first chart entry, peaking at number 23 and staying in the top 50 for six months. Not a dominant result, but enough to reach 100,000 copies sold, open up new avenues in the local market and pave the way for the artist himself, whose follow-up “Ball Pompös” (1974) would reach number 3 and top 250,000 copies.

Today Lindenberg is one of the legends of German music, particularly thanks to the career revival that began in 2008, with a long string of best sellersa different story and a different moment in history, but one that was only made possible by the seeds planted by this 1973 milestone.

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14/07/2024

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Michele Corrado, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition