And so I come to the last soundtrack album for the Deutschland series. All three of these television series has been really good, blending fact and fiction brilliantly. I would highly recommend watching all of them.
This soundtrack is a bit different from the previous two because whoever did the music for series 3, did it differently. Whereas series 1 & 2 used (mostly) contemporary tunes, this series used quite a lot of music from the 21st Century. Some songs were used in more than one show so these two factors made compiling this LP a bit tricker than previous efforts as I only look to use songs from or before the period the show is set. I cannot even be sure that at least one, or more of these songs comes form the early 90s because some of them are very obscure.
As with all of the other soundtracks, I had to start by using ‘Major Tom (Coming Home)’ by Peter Schilling. It is the song used on the opening credits and as I would have K-Tel releasing this record, they would want to make the most of this songs license. This is followed by ‘Alle Vögel Sind Schon Da’ by Botho-Lucas-Chor. Roughly translating to ‘All The Birds Are Already There’, the Botho-Lucas-Chor were one of the most famous German vocal ensembles groups of the 1960s and 70s. We also have a couple of classical pieces on Side A with Max Reger’s ‘Andante in De Major’ and ‘Quando Parli’. I have not been able to find out much about this second piece and this could even have been produced after 1989, but it does fit into the overall sound so I kept it in. In-between this two classical pieces is ‘Sag’ Mir, Wo Du Stehst ‘ by Naiv. I have not been able to find out anything about this band and like ‘Quando Parli’, I have not been able to confirm if this piece was recorded after 1989. We finish off Side A with ‘Lied Die Partei’ which translates as ‘The Party Is Always Right’ and was used but the East German Communist Party (SED) as the official party song.
Side B starts of with the B-52s and ‘Roam’, the other major hit from their ‘Cosmic Thing’ album (the other being ‘Love Shack’). Bert Sommer was the second lead vocalist in The Left Banke, as well as appearing in the musical ‘Hair’ in 1969 along with the original Woodstock Festival where he performed the song ’Jennifer’. We then have an early 60s recording of Mass In B Minor, BMV 232: Kyrie Elesion (Chorus) by the Robert Shaw Orchestra & Chorus. I included the whole of this section because it actually brought the run time of the album up to respectable length for an LP, and also because it would have been a disgrace to edit this down. The album finishes off with ‘I’m Gonna Lose You’ by Simply Red which originally appeared on the soundtrack to the film, ‘Frantic’.
So there we have it, the last of the Deutschland soundtracks. This one was a bit different from the previous three, but it still holds together as a soundtrack. The sleeve for this was adapted from the publicity material posted on line when the series was released.
Side A
- Major Tom (Coming Home) – Peter Schilling
- Alle Vögel Sind Schon Da – Botho Lucas
- Andante in D Major – Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra
- Sag’ Mir, Wo Du Stehst – Naiv
- Quando Parli – Giovanni Battista Bononcini
- Lied Die Partei – Ernst Busch
Side B
- Roam – The B-52’s
- Jennifer – Bert Sommer
- Mass In B Minor, BMV 232: Kyrie Elesion (Chorus) – Robert Shaw Orchestra And Chorus
- I’m Gonna Lose You – Simply Red
This playlist was impossible to recreate using Spotify.