A New Lease on Life

After 15 years, ten of those married, LILT is a single woman. You probably noticed (heh) a complete lack of activity here, and when I have posted it's been spotty. Shit happens. So does divorce.

I'm driving a new car, residing in my new apartment, and living differently. Also, my lovely friend in the Rammstein camp is no longer in the Rammstein camp. The changes have been drastic and fairly comprehensive.

One thing has not changed. I still listen to Rammstein, Gevolt, Combichrist, and Appocalyptica, turned up high.

I'm not sure what LILT will be from now on. I may never go back to being a decent news source for the band, because while I love the music I have run out of steam adapting the lyrics to English and I just don't feel the same joy in keeping up now my buddy isn't on tour with the boys.

I will be more active than I have been recently, but I'm not sure if you'll get what you had come to expect from this site. Stick with me if you appreciate me for my insight, but perhaps re-evaluate if you're only paying attention for the news.

LILT is here for the long haul, but what that means you'll have to wait to see. I certainly don't know! Probably the only thing you can count on is some adaptations of Gevolt's lyrics. Their arrangements and stunning vocalist lift the hairs on the back of my neck, and as they don't do the English thing I feel an urge to broaden their audience where I can.

If you've not heard Gevolt yet check out Gevolt.com.

Stil there?

Real Life

Labouring under the terrible burden of having the most awesome job in the world as I am, and also having huge amounts going on outside work, I have neglected you horribly. I'm sorry about this. I'll be back on track in a few days, rammaging around, digging up little gemstones about your favourite Germans, and posting them here for your delectation.

Oops, got to go and work again...

Rough Day

I've had a terrible day; forgetting to take my medication, wrecking my plans and disrupting my work routine; and I now plan to catch up on some work, listen to some music, play with my rabbit, and catch up with a friend online. I have a few things to post, but have made do with a few retweets for tonight, and will post them tomorrow. My apologies for the laziness, but I feel self-indulgent.

Under Medical Orders

My doctor has ordered me not to use my computer, as doing so has been damaging my buggered-up back further, so I will only be using it to do my job (I love my job) for a couple of weeks. This means all posts here will be made from my smartphone while lying in a drug-induced haze on the floor for a few weeks. The posts will be brief and basic as a result. My apologies in advance!

Are You Going?

If you are at the BDO and you see a blonde woman in a red and white dress, with a little red backpack, it is probably me. Feel free to come and say hello, but please do explain that you're saying hello to LILT, or I will probably worry that I should know your name!

I'm Not Rammstein

Today three people have mistaken me for Rammstein. I just want to clear up the confusion. I am a New Zealand woman who writes English lyrics for Rammstein songs and posts general news and media about the band. I'm a fan of the music, and a bit of a disciple of Lindemann where poetry is concerned. I am not a representative of the band, so I'm really sorry if people have got the impression I am. I've always tried to be very clear about the fact that I am not affiliated with Rammstein in any formal way.

If you're following my tweets because you are under the impression that I am an official source of information please check the @LIFAD stream, as this really is an official Rammstein stream.

For the record, if I ever post information directly from Rammstein I will cite them as my source.

It's My Birthday

I get to be completely self-indulgent and do whatever I want today, so I am not doing anything useful or practical. I shall write, work on my translation of Mike Oldfield im Schaukelstuhl, and watch TV. I suspect I will probably ramble a fair bit on here. It's a slow news period for Rammstein and I'm celebrating my last 30th birthday, so bear with me.

Affenknecht Logo WIN

I've had something of a success today, with my design having been selected as the new Affenknecht logo. Affenknecht (formerly Rammstein-EU) had to rebrand after having a run-in with Rammstein over intellectual property, which was all rather unfortunate, but the upshot is that the site is now all-original, alive and well, and still a premium, multilingual source of all things Rammstein.

You can follow their English Twitters here (this Twitter is included in my Rammstein list, so if you follow that you will get AK updates), and the site index is here (in case you wish to select a different language, in which to read your AK news).

Thanks External!

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A Small Slice of Pain

I'm not going to comment on the video yet. I need to watch it more than once, and while fully conscious. I also need to get out of the mindset I'm in, which is not positive or friendly in any way. I woke up angry this morning, which happens once in a blue moon.

In the meantime it should be noted that the performance Rammstein is just about to begin is the last until the try again in Luxembourg, January 31, so wish them well. Happy Christmas, strange men.

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More Bercy Pictures

I'm sorry I've been so brief and boring lately. My back's a bit buggered up again, and it's meant I spend as little time using my notebook as I can, outside work hours. This directly affects LILT, as all my posting is obviously done online. I'm seeing a physiotherapist to sort it out though, so hopefully I'll be all fixed up soon!

Some lovely pictures from the ninth may be found here. Thanks Epsilekt!

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One of 'Those Weeks'

I've had a week of creativity-smothering, mentally retarding crap. I feel about as constructive as a small heap of pine needles. I have to do a load of chores and then go to a party tomorrow. Sunday I plan to indulge in some serious Ramming. I'm just giving notice because LILT has been such a dry lake bed, and the next 30 hours will be more of the same. I don't want you lot thinking I don't care!

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What is this 'Liebe' of which you speak?

I originally fell in love with Rammstein in 2000. In the last few days I've fallen in love with the band all over again and harder than ever. They've managed to demonstrate in the most emotive and explosive way that old dogs can learn new tricks...and turn me on my ear. I now know for a fact, even without my pre-order having shipped yet, that I will soon take delivery of the best album ever to grace my collection.

You see, I took advantage of the recent stream of LIFAD on The Gauntlet to really take it in. The regular reloading of the page, the almost feverish listening I did, along with the frantic note-taking felt a bit sordid, obsessive, and closeted. It was actually a rather a surreal experience. I was also unwell, so I had a genuine fever, light-headedness, and a feeling of mild disassociation as I closed my eyes and climbed inside an envelope of sound of Rammstein's making.

That impression did not fade over the hours I was on the stream page. There were long periods where I just started the stream, listened, restarted it, listened, and then went into a spasm of writing, and I did, for a period, feel as though I lived and breathed inside my head, but not outside it. The cycle through all eleven tracks took me across a rainbow of sensations, images, emotions, and moods. I went through it a number of times, and it was incredible.

These men don't know I exist, and certainly I don't expect them to give a flying fuck what I think, but they are responsible for a lot of fucked up thoughts and feelings in me. Not bad. Just unprecendented. Now, people who don't feel Rammstein music apparently don't experience this, or they'd be fans too, so I have no idea what divides us from them, but there's something very primal and visceral about fan reactions to this music.

Part of that response in me while I was feeding off The Gauntlet's Liebe page was a growing feeling that if I learned what the lyrics meant it would somehow corrupt the integrity of the waveforms of emotion buffeting me, and it would all turn to chaos. The initial impressions I have always had from Rammstein's music have come before comprehension of verbal meaning, and have been on a purely emotional level. It was strange how alarming I found the idea of learning to comprehend the words at that time. It almost panicked me. Very strange.

I've begun to learn German. I'm wondering if I shouldn't stop when I reach a certain level; at least until Rammstein disbands. Yes, that is weird, but I'm not alone in feeling that full comprehension somehow taints the purity of that initial, knee-jerk reaction to the music. There may be something to it. All I know is that the sound stands on its own, and delayed understanding is something I favour.

The whole idea of Liebe is that everyone, no matter what their inclination, can find love in some shape or form to suit them. For some the love others seek is a twisted, evil, and utterly corrupt thing, or otherwise somehow valueless, but lets face it, we all define our universe and if one names a thing that is power. Call it love if you will, and then I guess love is in some way yours.

I love this album and I love the band. There is love and then there is love. The love I feel for each is completely different, and both are different again from what I feel for people in my life, but they are each a sort of love after all. There is love here for everyone.

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My LIFAD Review

My review is published over at The Gauntlet. How's that for a twist?

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Dear ****

I wrote an email to my mother about LIFAD today, but didn't send it. I've decided to just play the album to her when it comes out, and let her settle her own ideas based on the music. I did that with their earlier work, and she liked some of it a lot, despite understanding German, but I don't want to colour her perceptions of what's to come.

I thought I'd post it here though, as it's Rammstein, and it's me, and that's what this site is about, to a large degree:

Rammstein are releasing their sixth album in October. As usual they're approaching the world from below, giving us a fairly good view of its underbelly. Sex tourism, Fritzl, sex, Rammstein, sex, S&M, sex, etc. are amongst the subjects tackled. There should be plenty of shits and giggles, as ever.

The first single is here, with a pornographic video featuring all six band members with their heads composited onto porn actors' bodies banging a range of hot women silly, accompanied with images of a leather-clad musical performance, German flags, and a cat. The single is called 'Pussy', and it really, really nails down the subject matter...amongst other things.

Pussy is probably the track purported to be about sex tourism, since it mentions such things as driving abroad because 'I can't get laid in Germany', and German clichés like bratwurst and sauerkraut. It's crass, crude, explicit, and executed with tongue firmly planted in cheek, and it's catchy in a very poppy fashion. Definitely a primary source of the previously promised 'giggles'.

The B-side is a Rammstein anthem, in the same style as (funnily enough) 'Rammstein', and will be the album opener. Apparently 'epic' is the best description for it. It's called (obscurely) Rammlied.

Other tracks have explicit (and implicit) themes varying from Sharks (sex), through spring in Paris (possibly sex but probably love), and Fritzl (bad sex), the traditional huntsman's greeting (sex), and inflicting pain (during sex, I suspect), to B********, which is a word fabricated by the band to mean anything they like (probably sex). This is par for the course, but from the previews I've read it appears that this album is not more of the same, musically speaking. It sounds like they continue to evolve, despite Lindemann's propensity for sexual verbage.

The album is going to be called 'liebe ist für alle da' (LIFAD for short...and possibly for the Teutonically challenged), and has begun its life surrounded by controversy. This is appropriate. This is Rammstein!

The first shit-fight was over a leaked track (the title track), which trickled, then streamed, and then gushed through the fan scene while we were in Greece. Lots of drama, lots of legal action, and a PR nightmare later unreleased images then came to light and a fan community got hammered with yet more legal action. Soon after the promotional clips for the Pussy single came out, and broke the more fragile-minded amongst us. Then the actual single and video followed this week, and the faecal matter really became ballistic. This is the aforementioned 'shits'.

It's funny how people can handle violence of the 'Terminator' and 'Aliens' variety without turning a hair, but show them some good, healthy, rubbing of the uglies and they blush like nuns and make outraged noises.

I don't think anything else on the album is going to cause anything like the upsets we've already had though, so it's probably going to be fairly gentle from here on in, but anticipation is high, and I'm really looking forward to the album.

If you're wondering about the title of this post I refer to my mother by her name, rather than a maternal epithet, but don't choose to tell you what that is.

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LILTage

Just so you know, I am still working on LILT. I'm presently adapting Adios, which is actually hard. It's so simple that it's like doing Tai Chi in a straitjacket.

I'm also planning on doing a few more while I'm at it, but all the madness and jetlag (my first ever) since I got back from Greece has meant I don't have the time or mental energy to do much.

I'm also working on a song for a band, and of course my new Rammage Control thing, so it's all on. I'm actually going to drop everything soon, and do something utterly passive, such as watching a bunch of DVDs or gazing stupidly at nothing (same difference), as I think I need some serious blobby-time, but not yet...

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There's something about...where?

It has to be said that being in the middle of nowhere, with a lovely outlook and time to reflect, eat, drink, day-dream, and imagine, is good for the soul and creativity. I've written more verse and made more progress with LILT since I've been in Greece that ever before. It's crazy how submerged I become in metaphorical imagery when there aren't distractions (day job, real life, etc).

Right now everyone else is asleep. The whole village, that is. Not just the family. Silence reigns, and my mind is burning with images. I'm going to grab a beer and go and sit on the front steps (Macbook makes me happy and portable), so I can write and mess about with ideas, and look at the Agean, the olive trees, and the lovely (terribly stereotypical) village houses.

Shutters are closed or barely ajar. The air isn't moving. Insects are going about their daily business of eating, working, fucking, and dying. Sheep are dozing. The sea is hardly moving, and the clouds are building fortifications above the limestone marble cliffs that protect us here. Colours are blued by the heat haze, and I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be right now...except maybe down at the sea... or in the sea.

Yesterday I heard a bell, and thinking a sheep was loose I looked out the kitchen window. It was a mule, dragging his lead rope, and looking appropriately sheepish. All beasts of burden and production here wear bells. It's weird. In New Zealand only cats where the damned things, and those only to curb their natural abilities as hunters.

Maybe I should write something about the anthills that we call cities, predators in bondage, and mules...

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[Update: Hmm, turned out to be something quite different]

What if...?

Most of Rammstein's songs involve sex, violence, or both of them. Many involve fire and/or water. Almost all of them are about love in some shape. They're all about people. There are recurring themes. Like many people, I speculate about the themes Till uses in his songs.

What I'd like to know is whether all the imagery and ideas for the songs' words are Till's, or if the other band members throw out ideas for him to work with. What I'd also like to know is whether or not he takes poems he's already written and adapts those into lyrics to work with new music. Does he perhaps write lyrics, and then when music that suits the subject matter comes up, adapt those lyrics to work? How much do his poems and his lyrics overlap?

The reason for this speculation is my own recent thoughts about all the poetry I've written and binned throughout my life. I've only just gained an interest in lyrics, but I've written hundreds of poems over the years, and don't have any of them now.

What if I'd kept them?

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Drugs're Bad, mmmkay?

Okay, I managed to overdose slightly on my pain and anti-inflammatory medication, and feel relatively good, if a little skew-whiff. I've decided, while under the sinister influence of readily available, over-the-counter drugs, that I should perhaps work on Sonne before I try Klavier on for size. I don't know if this is what will happen or not, but you have been warned.

I've also updated my profile picture with one carefully taken via the filthy bathroom mirror today. The old one was from the summer before last, and I looked far too tanned and healthy. The present reality is sobering.

Because I've been so wrecked today I lay down and watched the making of the Du Hast and Sonne videos. It was a lovely to see these specials, as you get to see what honeys the band-members are. There's naturally no way to see their actual personalities when they perform, since they're anything but their normal selves, but when discussing their work all their natural charms are apparent.

They seem to be what you might call 'nice guys'. I'm sure there are all sorts of rules against calling rock stars nice guys, but since the intardweb police don't know where I live I'm not too worried. I like that they seem to be sweethearts, because it means they probably deserve their success.

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Broken

I'm flat on my back right now. It's quite hard to type. I've been awake most of the night with a pretty painful spasm in my back muscles on one side, spreading both up and down, and worsening as time went on, and am feeling very sorry for myself. I'm in serious need of a deep-tissue massage.

I thought I'd grit my teeth and post though, as yesterday's little foot-stamp has brought me a happy conclusion regarding the Klavier stand-off.

Now I've settled my boundaries where interpretation is concerned my problem with the Klavier parents is solved. The album text is my source, so the ambiguity is no more! The parents are those of the pianist, rather than the protagonist. I'll start work on Klavier soon.

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Tinting My World a Vivid Shade of Rammstein

I've had my head in these songs so much lately that I've gained some new perspective on how people go through life.

I did notice when I first started work on Rein Raus that I was looking at sex and people a bit differently. Granted, it's fine thinking about sex for hours at a time, but thinking about sex as per someone else's point of view is just weird. I've never looked at sex as a man might, let alone a man like that depicted in Rein Raus. He's a user with a very casual attitude to his partners, and I basically stepped on board that mindset and went with it. I have friends with similar characteristics, and I suddenly know them much better, I think. It's certainly been interesting working on that song, and I have really enjoyed the adjustments I've had to make to my own perspective.

Tier and Zerstören are a whole different kettle of fish. I can get my head into the right space, but I don't particularly enjoy it. While interesting it's very dark and very lonely. I just can't sympathise with Tier in the least, and I resent Zerstören's ugliness. I guess that's a good thing, given the evils of each. That said, I'd rather spend my life inside the mind drawn in Zerstören than go anywhere near Tier.

I think anyone who isn't a flawless God of Love can sympathise with Feuer und Wasser and Ohne Dich, and Du Hast for that matter. They're love songs, and though the message varies widely the underlying basis for each does not. It's a fairly ubiquitous.

As as aside, I've been contemplating picking up Klavier, but have hit a block. In verse three Jeremy has the following translation:

I hear mother pleading
father is beating me

In the booklet that comes with the CD those lines are transcribed as:

I heard her mother plea
Her father struck out at me

Grammatical issues aside, the latter is clearly defining whose parents they are. The translation of the original German from Jeremy, an adept German-speaker, does not, unless it's to say they're the speaker's parents. Until I know for sure which Till Lindemann intended (never mind the technicalities) I can't work on this song. The implications of that parenthood are too broad. Did Lindemann write the translations in the CD case?

That question is really bothering me. I need more information that I can't get from anyone but the author, who is so far from likely to ever see this that I think I'm going to miss out on Klavier. I find that sad.

I've got Rammstein in my mind, but no real world connection. Fuck!

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