GERMANY, GERMANY (Behind the Track)

Germany, Germany took a long time to write

And right before we needed to pack up our instruments to go to the studio

We solved the mystery and came up with an arrangement of the song

That suited everybody and turned out really good

We've tried everything, we've had so many different arrangements

But what the song's been missing was the impact of the whole band

So once we got that right, everything was fine

And we were ready to go to the studio

As a kid, I never had identified myself as a German

Or thought about my nationality in any kind of way

It simply didn't matter where I was from

And my parents raised me as an open-minded little fellow

My dad worked with a lot of people from all over the place

And they came by for dinner every once in a while

And it never mattered where they were from

But when I moved to Austria and went to school there

I was confronted with being the German kid every day

It started when I was ten years old

And I was excluded from groups and getting the feeling of not belonging there

And it took on from there 'til I had finished school and moved to Munich

It never left my mind

Nationalities are a weird thing

I mean you can't choose where you born and raised, but in 2021

People still reduce other people to their nationality

Gender, race, religion or whatsoever

Let's face it, this is bullshit

For me experiencing that in school taught me something

That the actual lessons couldn't teach me at all

Despite what I've experienced, my optimism was still way too big

To get disturbed by mean comments by some idiots

So, when I was 16, I thought that such a thing-

I felt like racism was something ancient

Something that is over

Something that books talk about to teach us about history

Shouldn't we know it better?

Oh well, growing up a little more, my optimism got a pretty rough reality check

I felt like racism was something ancient

Something that is over

Something that books talk about to teach us about history