Junimond

Junimond is a song written by Rio Reiser, who had been the singer and songwriter of Ton Steine Scherben. After the break up of Ton Steine Scherben, Rio was the only one to pursue a solo career. In contrast to the energy and roughness of the Scherben songs, the songs from his first solo album, Rio I, were much more calm and relaxed. One of the songs from this album was Junimond: It was recently covered by Echt, one of the better teenie (rock) bands in Germany, and is a song about love and death. The protagonist has died and sits on a cloud. From there he looks down on mankind. His death had something to do with an unfulfilled love (maybe suicide), but as he now sits on his cloud, this is meaningless (not the love, but the pain!). I will add a translation to the songtext, but this translation can not reflect to rythm of the original song. I advise you to get the original song and listen to it (the Echt version will do it, too, as it is really great).

As there are writeup neither about Ton Steine Scherben nor about Rio Reiser I'll have to tell you something about them. Ton Steine Scherben was the most famous band of the hippie and punk movement in Germany. They were founded somewhen at the end of the Sixties. They supported and were a part of the radical left-wing. Their song titles like "Keine Macht für Niemand" (No power for nobody) or "Macht kaputt was Euch kaputt macht" (Destroy, what destroys you) combined with their music, which anticipated the music of the Sex Pistols and The Clash and which had nothing to do with earlier protest singers like Hannes Wader implicated for many people that the band was somehow involved with the RAF.

This and other rumors made it very difficult for them to earn money in Germany, which was frightened by left-winged terrorism. At the beginning of the Eighties the band split, and everyone, except Rio, went on to lead a somehow common life. As this write up already shows, he continued to make music. And he was much more successful, than the Scherben had ever been. His song "König von Deutschland" (king of Germany), describing what he would do, if he became king, became a big hit in Germany. Obviously Germany now was ready for his music. But his music had also changed, "König von Deutschland" was a pop song and the necessity of a revolution was transfered in a humourous way. He released several solo albums until he died 1996. The consum of alcohol had destroyed his liver years before, but he kept on drinking.