IGBTW NOTES

In Germany Before The War was written by Randy Newman. When this piece was first played for me as a potential inclusion for my album "By Myself..."
I was immediately captivated by it's melody. I tend to have a great attraction for compositions that have a deep and mysterious essence about them. It wasn't until later that I found the time to actually research the origins or inspiration behind the composing of IGBTW.


In Germany Before The War
There was a man who owned a store
In nineteen hundred thirty four
In Dusseldorf
And every night at fine o nine
He'd cross the park down to the Rhine
And he'd sit there by the shore

I'm looking at the river
But I'm thinking of the sea
I'm looking at the river
But I'm thinking of the sea

A little girl has lost her way
With hair of gold and eyes of gray
Reflected in his glasses
As he watches her
A little girl has lost her way

I'm looking at the river
But I'm thinking of the sea
Thinking of the sea
Thinking of the sea

We lie beneath the autumn sky
My little golden girl and I
And she lies very still

The subject of this Randy Newman composition is no little criminal. "In Germany Before The War" was inspired by the off-beat 1931 Fritz Lang film M, which featured Peter Lorre as serial child killer Hans Beckert. Newman set his version in 1934; according to a review in the London Observer of September 2003, the song is a metaphor for a nation about to enter a period of transgression and horror - by this time Adolf Hitler had been Chancellor for over a year, and the economic persecution of German Jewry was already well underway. This explanation is possible, especially as Newman is himself a Jew. That being said, there was a real child killer on the loose in the city at that time. Peter Kürten was executed in July 1931 after confessing to nine murders. He was known as the Düsseldorf Ripper, the Vampire of Düsseldorf or the Monster of Düsseldorf. Lang always denied basing the film character on Kürten, but the facts speak for themselves. Although Newman's song does not actually describe or mention a murder, it is difficult to put any other interpretation on the final line where the golden girl who has lost her way lies "very still." This is Newman at his somber, brooding best, notwithstanding the terrible subject.

Who was Peter Kurten ?

Now at first I was bewildered to discover the meaning behind IGBTW. But as time went on I came to realize this song can actually set the stage as a reminder that just like with Peter Kurten innocent children go on being murdered all over the planet. I now think of the song, as dark as it is, as an homage to all those innocent lives lost either at the hands of a very disturbed single man or by a militant psychopathic group of militia. In order for me to bring such a subject out into the open I choose to sing about it.

In Germany Before The War