Friday, March 10, 2023

"Ich Bin Ein Ausländer" (video)

Pop Will Eat Itself; Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly
German Auslanders expelled from Poland in 1948: Get out, you foreigners! (Bundesarchiv)

I always thought they (PWEI) were saying, in German, "I am an Icelander." Auslander actually means "outlier," "outsider," or "foreigner," someone from the periphery or parts unknown, like the Native Sami (Sápmi, formerly Laplanders) in Sweden. We think they look like adorable Swiss Miss blondes, but to the Scandinavian, Nordic/Germanic Swedes, the Sami are icky "Natives" and "savages," crude people who live in the Lapps/Lapland, where no rightminded person would choose to live, in the cold, among the reindeer, by the restless sea.

LYRICS: "Ich Bin Ein Ausländer"
Listen to the victim abused by a system
The basis is racist. You know that we must face this
It can't happen here
(Oh, yeah?)

Take a look around at the cities and the towns
See 'em huntin', creepin', sneakin', breedin'
Fear and loathing with the lies they're speakin'
The knife, the gun, broken bottle, petrol bomb

There is no future when the past soon come
And when they come to ethnically cleanse me
Will you speak out?
Will you defend me?

Or laugh through a glass eye as they rape our lives?
Trampled underfoot by the rise on the Right

(Liam O'CaoimhGrebo PWEI Late Late Show (RTE) appearance, Ireland

CHORUS:
(You call us...)
Ich bin ein Ausländer*
(You call us what?)
Ich bin ein Ausländer
(You call us...)
Ich bin ein Ausländer
(You call us what?)
Ich bin ein Ausländer
Welcome to a state where the politics of hate
Shout loud in the crowd
Watch 'em beat us all down
There's a rising tide on the rivers of blood

But if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence
If they come to ethnically cleanse me
Will you speak out?
Will you defend me?

Freedom of expression doesn't make it all right!
Trampled underfoot by the rise of the right

(Chorus)

Ich bin ein Ausländer

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