The Soundtrack of my Youth

„Sag mir, wo die Blumen sind“ - Marlene Dietrich 

This is the ultimate song to my childhood. Played and sung by my Dad as a lullaby when he sat by my bed. I remember being cozy, feeling loved, safe and warm under the blanket but with a sense of melancholy and sadness of a time that wasn't mine and struggles that I would never meet. For a long time I was too little to understand the meaning behind the song, I only felt that it wasn't a happy one. I often pretended to be asleep and when my Dad left, trying to be very quiet, I felt a rush of being lost and living in a secret world inside me, noone would ever know like me.

In the end, the song's about death and how to go on.

“Zu spät” - Die Ärzte

The first lyrics I knew by heart. Liking this German band was a family thing. My dad loved the music when he was younger and brought me and my brothers to it. Around the time I started to take guitar class (in third grade), it was also one of the first songs I could play on my own – more or less fluent and harmonic. The song talks about a disappointed love and a person who was dumped. He sings about the glorious future that he'll have as a rockstar and how the girl who dumped him is going to regret this very very badly. But with a sassy “too late” he rejects her like she had did earlier. Lyrics always play a role for me when listening to music, this was maybe one of the songs that started my enthusiasm about it.

“Sk8ter Boi” - Avril Lavigne

Avril Lavigne was kind of my heroine when I was younger. She was all I wanted to be.

And I think of Punk-Avril, 17, with ties and baggy pants and not her later version with pink skirts, skulls and strands of hair. She was cocky, sometimes rude, she made punk music – she was everything but a girly girl. “Sk8ter Boi” was the first song I was able to translate to German, when I was, let's say 11 or 12 years old. It was my Sims 2-phase and I loved the fan-made video of the song, too – It truly inspired me. I was digging it!

And let's be real, I still sing along today.

“Cornerstone” - Arctic Monkeys

A story I never told my ex-boyfriend, but still was my best moment on a music festival ever: That moment, when a guy behind me in the crowd agreed to lift me up on his shoulders and I could sit there, enjoying a much better view on the Arctic Monkeys playing on stage at Southside 2013. When Cornerstone came up and everyone was singing along, I had goosebumps. I felt magic. All along, I petted the hair of this guy I didn't even know the name of. I only remember someone had spider pig (from the Simpsons movie) drawn on his arm with sharpy marker and he was hella proud of it. As a thank you he received a kiss on the cheek. I never ever saw him again.

“Stolen Dance” - Milky Chance

One true friend who I've been so lucky to meet in Paris last year, introduced me to the song. I was kind of late liking it (a year earlier, it had been all over the radio but it kinda slipped through my field of... listening?). The song was one of those you listen to a thousand times until one day you get tired of them. When I catched a bike at République and cruised down the Boulevards, it was the soundtrack I would listen to, over and over. For me, it symbolizes all this year meant to me: Freedom, being young, living life like a party. For sure, I never danced like this before! (We don't talk about it)

"She Moves in Her Own Way" - The Kooks

First of all, I thought it would have been a shame if my favourite band was not represented on this list, so they had to be here. Secondly, this was the first song ever I knew by The Kooks so it was the song that introduced me to them. Thirdly, I still can blast this tune even though I listened to it a million times and lastly, maybe I like to think of myself als the girl "that moves in her own way". The girl that leaves a mark, that dances to her own melody, that is herself and herself only. I wish to be that girl.

“Today” - Joshua Radin

The ultimate Goodbye tune. This song was obviously only written to make people cry. The impermanene of life, of love of frriendships – The uncertainty of looking forward, of parting from people who have grown so close to you that you don't want to lose them ever. You don't want to get them out of your sight in the fear of never having them back in there.

"Kiss" - Prince

More recent, but still my youth (I just turned 20, okay?!), I got to be addicted to this song. My "new" (*coughes* SIX months already!) boyfriend showed it to me. He is kinda into old films and music - one of the many things that I like about him. And he loves to make his own playlists for occasions when he hasn't got a vynil record of that artist. The song kind of represents our relationship to me. It's fun, it's nice, it's exciting. I remember that one time when I visited him in Cologne where he lives with his Dad when he's home. When this tune came on on his stereo we both jumped out of the bed and started acting crazy. 
Dancing like we were in an embarrassing 80s music video. 

One thing for sure: If not one of the others, this song will get stuck in your head!

I hope you've enjoyed this soundtrack. Of course there are many more songs that I love and that were and are important to me, but I just selected these few spontaneously. Check out my friend Philipp's approach to the soundtrack of his youth. And have a really nice day! :)