An Exhaustive History of German Cover Songs

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Dick Brave & The Backbeats – Black or White (Michael Jackson cover)

Once again, rockabilly. German teen idol Sasha, MOR pop, once had the idea of an alter ego – and invented “Dick Brave” with a complete fake bio. His album was a real success. Nowadays, he tried to switch into the singer-songwriter branch and to sing in German, with far lesser success…

Buddy & The Huddle – Drive my Car (Beatles cover)

These are surely “the musicians‘ musicians” – highly acclaimed but completely unknown to the majority. I own several albums (and even vinyl) by them, but do not have much information. Also with a lot of weirdo covers, but hard to find on the web.

The Busters – Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)

Probably the best, the most successful German ska band. These dirty dozen of musicians (with five guys in the brass section!) also did lots of touring, even played the Montreux Jazz Festival. Really a show to see them live!

Daily Terror – Far Far Away (Slade cover)

A very traditional, old style punk band – Pedda Teumer, the singer, has passed away some years ago. They were always part of the fun-and-party-section of German punkrock and suffered from the fact that they never drew a clear enough line between them and fascist punks and skins. When I hear it nowadays, I am shocked how striking the accent is…

Anna Depenbusch – Mann für Mich [She’s Always a Woman] (Billy Joel cover)

A German singer songwriter with a unique voice, very convincing on piano. On this old Billy Joel tune, she switches the sexes – not for the worst. She says, she couldn’t have done it one-to-one in translation.

Derrière le Mirroir – Nowhere Girl (B-Movie cover)

Does actually anyone know the original? One of my favourite dance tracks (when I was dancing, haha!). It was wave, now it is dark wave. Despite the French name – this is a German band!

Marlene Dietrich – Sag‘ mir, wo die Blumen sind (Pete Seeger cover)

The saddest, the worst, the hardest song in this list. A step back in time, a step into real serious topics. Marlene, who left Germany to become the world’s first star from this country, has not an outstanding singing voice; the orchestra is not much more than shopping mall level and quality oft he video is poor – but nevertheless, it is touching and a real tearjerker. The German version is not a strange cover; it is quite popular here for decades.

Dödelhaie – Das Holzfällerlied [Lumberjack Song] (Monty Python cover)

I think that this one can only be appreciated by the ones capable of German – and knowing the original tune. The song is done in a fast punk style, but the lyrics are more or less translated exactly into German.

Donots – True Faith (New Order cover)

Having been a hardcore band, they have gotten a bit softer nowadays. This is one of their earlier works, a real pogo track.

Doro – A whiter shade of pale (Procul Harum cover)

Doro, the singer of Warlock, is a real metal queen – blonde hair, black leather, high heels. And quite a voice. Kind of irony, that besides her metal songs, she was most successful with acoustic ballads, sung in German.

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