January 27 - In Dieser Stadt

After a brief intermission from this week's theme due to the untimely death of Jimmy Bain, it's time to get back to my oddities week with a question: What happens if you take a German cabaret song and give it a Norwegian new wave? You get something completely new. The sonic palette is icy and filled with the latest in synthesizers (for 1981), and the vocals, sung by an immigrant from West-Germany, become both haunting and menacing, in stark contrast to the warm and husky original. The band was The Cut and the song still is In Dieser Stadt. 

I am not sure why this song became a staple in my household. I believe it was one of Norway's submissions to the European Broadcasting Union's radio pop music show Europatoppen, where youth from several European countries got to vote on songs, creating a pan-European hit list. I believe my dad taped the song and played it quite a bit. What I do know is that it stuck. I haven't sought out the full album by The Cut yet, but as the song was available for purchase as a digital download at Amazon.com, I decided to at least get that song. I don't know much about what happened to the members of the band either, although I just found out that Volker Zibell, the singer, is a graphic designer and artist working in the comic book industry in Norway. The one I did know more about is the bass player, Torgrim Eggen, who is a very successful - and very good - Norwegian author.

But, I digress again. Taken from smoky clubs upon its initial release by Hildegard Knef in 1965, when the song, aged by whiskey and cigarettes, already sounded at least 20 years old, the city is a much colder place, filled with concrete and smog, when The Cut took us there in 1981.