When All Springs Flow – German Folk Songs

For a long time I have wanted to write an article about German folk songs. Among literally many thousands I present here only 16 songs.

I wanted to make sure, first of all, that every song had a good, modern interpretation, secondly that they have a reliable translation and thirdly that they are introduced with some information; nevertheless, we can be sure that all of the songs shown are among the most popular and beautiful.

Germany has an inexhaustible treasure of folk songs going back to the Middle Ages and ever further. Most of them were composed in dialects and old forms of German, being later translated into modern German (Hochdeutsch).

Anton Wilhelm Florentin von Zuccalmaglio

In a racially conscious state it will be our duty to make folk-music an important study in the university. Rescuing our musical traditions deserves its own field among scholars and it can take literally a lifetime in order to learn enough about the (real!) music of your own land.

One name that appears often in collections of German Folk-songs is Anton Wilhelm Florentin von Zuccalmaglio (12 April 1803 – 23 March 1869), a German dialectologist, folklorist, folk-song collector, poet, and composer, born in Waldbröl.

Out of love for his culture, he dedicated his lifetime to the rescuing of folk-traditions and that’s why many of the most popular songs were published and edited by him; we could think of him as the Jacob Grimm of folk-songs.

Folk songs In Germany don’t have today the recognition they had in the past. An important part of Hitler’s cultural program was the revival and promotion of folk songs (you are about to hear what Hitler liked when it came to ‘pop music’) and because of that, their role in society has become neglected in the name of political correctness.

It is important to differentiate between Volkslieder (folk songs) and Volksmusik (folk music). Volkslieder (what I present here) is the collection of ancient songs, including songs of the army, love songs, songs from famous musicians like Brahms and Schubert, songs from famous writers like F. Schiller or Goethe, songs for children, songs for feast and drinking, songs with humor, student’s songs, etc.

Volksmusik is played ‘usually’ with traditional instruments and costumes which can variate according to region

Volksmusik is on the other hand a specific music style, played with determined instruments and many songs in this style are today neither traditional nor old. A good analogy would be Country music in America, it is a specific music style but it doesn’t mean all the songs are old or traditional.

Something is for sure, when we show our youth that modern Jewish music like Rihanna is just for third-worlders and that the black artists who sing that are no more talented than the drug addict on the street, our musicians will start looking at our folk songs again, making new interpretations of them and creating new ones. I cannot wait for the day when black music becomes despised as something that only very mediocre people would hear.

The musical treasure of folk songs is so vast that we could release year after year new versions without falling into repetition; as soon as a new version has been released, some scholar would have discovered more songs, which laid buried in some old book.

Once our culture is so impregnated with folk-music (just as it is today with black music) it will come naturally to the new talents to start composing in a folkish style as it happened during the Romantic Movement, which brought us one of the most creative and sophisticated achievements in the history of music.

An important aspect of German folk songs is the language; these songs are written in the informal language that average people used and not in a fake way of speaking as happens today. Modern songs use a language that reflects neither the language of intellectuals nor the one of normal Whites; it is rather suited for black criminals and as such it is totally alien to our young people.

As a contrast, folk songs were written either by great German writers inspired by their culture or by average people using the language they did use in everyday life as a way of asserting their identity.

The German diminutive ending with –ein or –chen appears very often, for example: Schwester; Schwesterlein (sister; little sister), Rose; Röslein (rose; little rose), Haus; Häuschen (house; little house), Anna; Ännchen (Anna; little Anna) among many other informal expressions that would require a whole article in order to explain.

As a last note about the songs, we should keep in mind that when it comes to physical characteristics these are exaggerated for the sake of poetry. When a song says ‘schwarz’ (literally black) it actually means brown or dark-blond. Colloquialism are the opposite of accurate terms and ‘schwarz’ is simply the opposite of hell (bright), a term used for describing blue eyes in German, although no one would claim blue is a synonym of bright.

It’s also interesting that for the same songs there exist variations in which the text says blue eyes instead of brown eyes and vice-versa. Here I use the text that agrees with the recordings.

Wenn alle Brünnlein fließen (When all Springs Flow)

This is one of the most beloved songs in Germany. Its composer is unknown but it originated from the region of Schwaben and was published for the first time in the year 1520 by the musician Leonhard Klebers.

This interpretations comes from the folk-band` Zupfgeigenhans`

Röslein auf der Heiden (Rosebud in the Heather)

The text of this song is a poem from the famous dramatist Wolfgang von Goethe. This poem called ‘Heidenröslein’, was published in the year 1779 and was inspired on older German traditions. Franz Schubert made a song out of it but the final version comes from Heinrich Werner’s edition, published around 1829.

This interpretation comes from the American musician John Kelly and his Basque wife.

3) Abschied (Farewell)

This is an old folk song that appeared for the first time in the so-called ‘Lochamer Liederbuch‘ in the 15th century. The author is unknown and the modern version was edited by Günter Possiger.

This interpretation comes from the German folk-musician Hannes Wader

4) Schwarzbraunes Mädel (Dark-blond Girl)

This song is credited to the famous folklorist Anton Wilhelm Florentin von Zuccalmaglio. He published it for the first time in his song’s collection ‘Deutsche Volkslieder’ in the year 1840, but the song was a remake of an anonymous, old song from the German region of Hessen.

5) In einen Harung jung und schlank (with a Herring, Young and Skinny)

This is a song intended for having fun. There is a contradiction because at the beginning it tells about a young herring while at the end it says ‘such an old herring, he has experience’.

We have to keep in mind that the texts of folk songs had many variations and that they were transmitted orally, therefore it could happen that some parts become mixed up. This contradiction provably didn’t exist in the oldest versions.

6) Schön ist die Jugend (The Youth is Beautiful)

The melody and text of this old song are anonymous but it is known that they originated from Hessen around the Seulingswald forest.

This interpretation comes from the Dutch wonder-kid Heintje, who became very famous in Germany during the 60’s and 70’s.

7) Es waren zwei Königskinder (They were two Children of kings)

This song was composed sometime during the Middle Ages and the oldest reference to it comes from the year 1480. The text in this song takes on themes of classical mythology like the story of Hero and Leander and there exist many variations of it.

An interesting part of the song is the element of the ‘evil nun’. This skepticism about Christian piousness and the questioning of the moral pretensions of Christianity is typical of a society that has not fully left behind its pagan past.

This interpretation belongs to Deitsch, a German band of alternative music.

8) Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust (Wandering is the Joy of the Miller)

The text of this sing is a poem written by Wilhelm Müller and published in 1821. Franz Schubert made a song out of this poem around 1823 (it is to be found in his work ‘Die schöne Müllerin’) but it took Carl Friedrich Zöllner to make a more popular version in order for the song to reach its modern popularity. This song is arguably one of the most known and popular in Germany.

This interpretation belongs also to Heintje.

9) Mädel rück rück rück an meine grüne Seite (Girl, Come Sit Beside Me)

This colorful song is actually written in Schwebisch dialect and tells about a country boy courting a young girl. This little treasure is full of old colloquial ways of speaking but it wasn’t published until the 18th century.

The schwebische expression ‘Mädel ruck, ruck, ruck an meine grüne Seite’ translates literally as: ‘maiden come, come, come to my green side’ but in reality it means simply: ‘come and sit beside me’. What does a green side has to do with come and sit with me? Well, that you will have to ask an old farmer from Schwabenland.

There’s also the expression ‘you are so beautiful like milk and blood’; this might sound strange at first but we just have to remember ourselves of the fairy-tale of snow-white, where a drop of blood on the snow is a metaphor for red cheeks and white skin. The ideal of very white skin together with red cheeks is prevalent in the traditions of White people.

This interpretation belongs to the German tenor Hermann Prey

10) Westerwaldlied (Song of the Westerwald Forest)

This beautiful song originates, as the tittle already shows, from the region around the Westerwald forest. The melody was known since the 18th century but it was put together with the text that we present here until 1932.

This song was once disdained because it was one of the most beloved ones during National Socialist Germany, but only 10 years after the war ended, it reconquered its popularity and recognition, not only in Germany but around the world.

Note: ‘das Herz im Leibe lacht’ (literally, the heart laughs inside the body) is a common German expression that means someone feels very happy in that moment

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11) Schwarzbraun ist die Haselnuss (dark-blond are hazelnuts)

The importance of this song cannot be underestimated; it is a record of the war traditions among our Germanic ancestors that go very back into the past. This song appeared on record for the first time on the 16th Century but there’s evidence that it had been orally transmitted much longer than that, with some variations on the text. This hymn of  war has been sung by German warriors since immemorial times, up into the two world wars.

Note: In this potpourri the song muss begins at the minute 8 with 20 seconds.

Ännchen von Tharau is a 17-stanza poem by the Prussian poet Simon Dach. The namesake of the poem is Anna Neander, the daughter of a parson from Tharau, East Prussia (now known as Vladimirovo in the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia). The poem was written on the occasion of her marriage in 1636 and had been set to music as a song by 1642.

Interpretation from Hannes Wader

13) Horch was kommt von draußen rein (Pay Attention to What Comes from Outside)

The author of this jewel remains lost in the past, all we know is that this song comes from the region of ‘Badische Pfalz’.

14) Das arme Dorfschulmeisterlein (The Poor Teacher of the Town)

We have here a song created for young students in order to have a laugh. The music and the text of this song were orally transmitted from generation to generation but from the text we can deduce it originated in the region of Schwaben. The modern version was edited by Stephan Pficht.

The song is full of slang language characteristic of young students, for example, when it says dann könnt ihr sehen, wie er frißt (there you can see how he eats), the verb fressen means eating but it can refer only to animals, therefore it is humorous when the song means the school teacher, another example is when the song says dann könnt ihr sehen, wie er sauft (there you can see how he drinks); saufen is a slang verb for drinking alcohol without control.

15) Schwesterlein (little sister)

This song assembled by Anton Willhelm von Zuccamaglio was inspired on much older traditions and published in 1838. The famous German musician Johannes Brahms edited this song further.

This beautiful song tells about a young girl who dances so long with her beloved one until she dies of exhaustion; before that, her brother urged her ever more worried to come home with him but she refused; this theme of the girl dying from too much dancing appeared already in ancient folk tales.

The euphemism at the end, that her bed lays under the grass, means that she realizes she is dying and will be buried soon-after. I find it still amazing how one of the most beautiful and original melodies of the 19th comes actually from the folkloric traditions among normal people.

16) Kein schöner Land (no country more beautiful)

This song belongs also to the collection of Anton Wilhelm Florentin von Zuccamaglio published around 1840 and it comes too from a very old folk song, whose origins are traced back to the region of the Niederrhein.

Around 1884 this song had already gained popularity among army songbooks and around 1918 it was well known in the German boy-scouts movement called Wandervogelbewegung. Almost every German knows this song today.

Despite of its religious theme at the end, I like this song because it expresses a feeling of brotherhood among the people, something that is characteristic of racially homogeneous societies; the text uses god rather as a symbol of the goodwill and trust among the people and that harmonizes with folkish, pagan sensibilities.

Note: Eichengrund (lit. Oaks ground) is a common place name in Germany, it can be literally anywhere in the country or even in Switzerland.

I would be glad to see your comments, to know which ones you liked the most and why!

Source Article from http://www.renegadetribune.com/springs-flow-german-folk-songs/

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