To me it sounds like Till's telling a story that hurts like hell in the recounting, but that simply must be told. Imagine to yourself a battle-scarred, drunk veteran remembering his awful career, and you'll probably get the idea of what I'm hearing. This song is a wrench.
The chorus is pretty. It sounds like agony, but is lovely and almost 'anthemic', with the whistling always coming back in as a link to the next verse. The song is one to listen to while feeling maudlin and nostalgic. There's plenty of inspiration for the little weeper in us all.
It's incredible how different Liese, which is now on the 'done' pile*, feels to Roter Sand, given the music is pretty much the same. Here's my blind take on that:
The lyrics are somehow fuller and more fleshy (I get the impression more is said, for some reason), and Till has thrown in a hefty dose of menace, and a smudge of lasciviousness (the only sex on the bonus disc) too. The blatant sorrow of Roter Sand doesn't surface at all, despite the music being identical. A much more sinister film coats Liese and I love it. While I have no doubt that Roter Sand was more in keeping with the album's flow, I consider Liese to be lyrically/vocally much meatier, and I'm really glad they tagged it onto the bonus disc.
More than half of the meat is in the operatics of Till, but a huge amount of the texture comes from the lyrics. I don't just mean the meaning. The verbal choices he has made impact the vibe of the song. It's an interesting experiment in poetry.
I wonder if he wrote other lyrics for this music...
* How long that will last?
