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I guess I started actually
understanding the English language after reading "Even Cowgirls
get the Blues" by Tom Robbins. It turned out part of the reason
why I feel drawn to the language, musically even more than to
German. There's more to it though, I haven't yet given up on
figuring that one out..
In the 90s I spent some years moving
between places and countries, trying to figure out what it might
be that makes me feel most alive, what it is that I want to keep
doing after I found it. I didn’t find anything that kept me, but
that moving around was my escape from boredom. I felt stuck with
everything and everyone after some time and it took me a while to
admit to myself that in my case music was the only thing worth
pursuing, which is what I've been doing ever since returning to
Berlin in the early 2000s.
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My travelling years included some time
of roaming the United States. And when being asked where my
affinity to music and English language comes from, I sometimes
feel inclined to refer to, apart from reading Tom Robbins, the
US. For the language, that is certainly true. As for music
though, who knows. Growing up in a family of classic musicians,
one takes in a lot of musicality and understanding for harmonics.
Songwriters teach you how to write songs though. We start
becoming ourselves by imitating people we admire. So I did,
bought all Beatles records on vinyl and easily fell for other
giants, Neil Young, Tom Petty, Crowded House, and later people
like Ron Sexsmith, Wilco, Gillian Welsh, Dan Bern, Jackson
Browne, Gordon Lightfoot .. most of all it’s their incredibly
powerful, melody laden song writing that gets to me, that moved
me before I ever started my travels.
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