Explaining the Florian Silberreisen 'Scandal'

 This story starts back in 1984, with the album Perlen released by the Klaus Lage group in West Germany.   The band?  Pure rock, and this Perlen album set them off on the high trail.  Everyone in the country knew the album, and it was hot for probably 18 months.

On value?  It's an interesting album, and almost every tune is worth listening to.  

The biggest tune from Perlen?   The song 1000 und 1 Nacht (Zoom!).  It's a rather catchy piece and it's about a romance between a boy and a girl in their youth, and how they come back later in life to be a couple.  

At some point, maybe mid-way....one asked the other if they remember what they played as kids, and the answer given....'Indians'.  

Now if you asked me about this....at the time (1984)....you would have referred to Karl May-type movies (westerns) that were released throughout the 1960s/1970s.  

Diether Dehm was attached to the crafting of the song.  To him....even today, it's a special tune.

So, there's this highly known Slager-singer....Florian Silbereisen, who ran a show on Channel One (ARD) entitled "Der Große Schlagerabschied" and decided to sing this Lage tune.

At the point where "Indians" should have been uttered...."together" was uttered instead.  

Dehm is the guy who went to the police and filed a complaint....abusing the text of the original song.  For the record, and this is a bit interesting.....after his years in crafting songs....he got into politics for around sixteen years (Linke Party), and currently today, in some capacity serves as a advisor to Sahra Wagenknecht.

Jail-time here?  No.  But it would be a fine, and maybe even a civil suit....for just reshaping the song.

Some gut feeling this was done to be 'politically correct'?  Well....you would not think that Florian Silberreisen was big into being politically correct, but there's just not much of a reason to yank out 'Indians' and insert 'together'.

You would also not think that some ARD producer or influencer would have walked around said 'Indians' was wrong.  But maybe that's how this whole thing started up.

Silly thing?  You would think that.  But you know....in terms of creating scandals out of thin air, Germans seem to have an abundance to select from, and on highly valued scandals.....this probably doesn't rate from than a '5' (1-to-10 scale).  

Silberreisen will have to hire a 1,000-Euro a day lawyer, and spend a couple hours in some court....explaining what really happened and hopefully just admit he was reading text off someone's copy, and didn't even realize he screwed up.  Then he'll get some lecture by the judge....pay some minor fine, and the public might grumble....asking what really happened here?

For the record....is 'Indians' forbidden to use in Germany?  No.  That's the other odd part to this story.  Is playing cowboys and Indians forbidden?  No.  Is there a problem discussing cowboys and Indians?  Well...if there ever was a public forum wasted on a topic....yes, it'd be a rather harsh forum to sit through and discover the evils of the cowboy world, or old western movies.  You'd get the 'evils' lecture and feel guilty for enjoying western themes.  

Scandal-wise?  It's just not much to talk about.  

(FYI: Lage is 72 and still alive today.  It would be interesting to hear his thoughts on this)