We have had six popes since the 1970s, but only one Nina Hagen. Her blessing is still felt in the music and fashion world today. We light a candle for the universal genius and madness on her 70th birthday.
Sometimes the voice of reason sounds like a siren of chaos. A voice that, in five octaves, either warbles socialist-conformist pop songs, makes German punk world-famous or preaches gospel with fervor. Or, as she did one Sunday evening in 1992, shouting at two women in front of the assembled TV nation: “I’ll shout at you for as long as I want”, Nina Hagen ranted in the “Talk im Turm” panel discussion, referring to Ilse-Maria Oppermann from the Federal Parents’ Council and Angela Merkel, then Federal Minister for Women and Youth. It was about the legalization of soft drugs, demanded by Hagen in a holy furor. When the singer realizes that she is debating against a four-eyed wall with the progressive thinking of a crocheted blanket, she storms out of the show to the helpless presenter. Nina Hagen later apologized for this memorable appearance – or rather: departure. But we are the ones who have to thank her. For decades, she splashed around as a brightly colored cauldron against a German entertainment mainstream that was as exciting as yellowed woodchip wallpaper. As a supposed court jester with the truth dancing on her tongue, talk shows at home and abroad brought La Hagen onto the couch and accepted collateral damage for the temporary loss of control: after Nina demonstrated masturbation techniques for women during a live broadcast on Austrian television in 1979, moderator Dieter Seefranz lost his job.
Struggle for freedom and frontline pork
Of course, the media gave her the title “Godmother of Punk” for such performances. If you ask Nina Hagen for a more accurate description, she says: Freedom fighter. A fight she was born into. As a child of the GDR, Nina imitated vocal exercises for the opera at the age of nine and listened to Janis Joplin and Joe Cocker on record. In her teenage years, she emulated lifelong role models such as Bertolt Brecht and Wolfgang Neuss in a secret cabaret group. After training at the Central Studio for Entertainment Art, Nina Hagen was initially allowed to warble good little songs for the gossiping uncles and aunts as a state-certified pop singer. But it was “Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen” that became her first hit – also thanks to the subversive lyrics, which criticized the grey dreariness of the East German republic. At the age of 21, Nina Hagen managed to escape from the GDR. London calling and Nina answered the call. In England’s punk ground zero, she was finally able to become what she always wanted to be, in her own words: a “front pig”.
The singer soon set her sights on an even bigger mess: the USA. Nena also released 99 balloons there, but Nina Hagen set off 100 sticks of dynamite. With the talent of Cyndi Lauper, Iggy Pop and Klaus Nomi all in one, she became Germany’s most exciting export – years later, the United States returned the favor by giving Germany David Hasselhoff as a gift. It was like trading Manhattan for a few colorful marbles. Hagen’s “New York New York” landed at number 9 in the US charts and is still our definitive anthem of the Hudson metropolis. Sorry, Frank Sinatra and Jay-Z.
From another planet
The rest of the world was also blown away. When the first festival edition of Rock in Rio took place in 1985, the biggest concert in music history to date, around 300,000 fans cheered Hagen’s performance. Back in Europe, she became Jean Paul Gaultier’s muse (and also married one of his stylists). Vivienne Westwood also went on a fashionable rampage with Nina Hagen and carried her status as a style icon into the nineties. Looks as if from another planet matched the themes that now preoccupied Nina. She claims to have seen a UFO. And God had already met her as a teenager during an LSD trip. After a short trip to an Indian ashram, she finally found herself back on cloud nine of Christian charity. Anyone who dares to play a drinking game today and downs a grain every time Nina mentions the good Lord in an interview hopefully has a guardian angel who knows how to pump a stomach. Even after more than 50 years, Nina Hagen’s preaching is not over. She regularly releases new songs, marrying the spiritual with the political, for example on the album “Personal Jesus”, which is now being reissued on vinyl. Whether she SHOUTS or whispers, sometimes in the same sentence, Nina Hagen has remained a voice of reason – even if she sometimes misspeaks. And even those who were once blown away by the singer’s words paid tribute to her at some point: when Angela Merkel stepped down as German Chancellor in 2021, she had the Bundeswehr Orchestra accompany her with a marching version of “Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen”. Shortly afterwards, streaming figures for the song skyrocketed. Germany no longer had a “Mutti”. But his mother is far from finished reading us the riot act.
PERSONAL JESUS
Nina Hagen found God at the age of 17 – on LSD, because the paths to the Lord are unexpected. But before the singer recorded her first gospel album, she first had to write punk history, preach about UFOs and follow an Indian guru. Sometimes the path to the Lord leads down strange roads. Now, 15 years after its release, “Personal Jesus” is available for the first time as a vinyl version, including the bonus track “I Am Born To Preach The Gospel”. Don’t worry: in the rock diva’s inimitable style, the songs don’t sound like Sunday school and will have even atheists snapping their fingers. Thank God, er, Nina.
Grab Personal Jesus on vinyl.
He comes from a completely different background, but is just as iconic: read our portrait of Jack Nicholsonhere.
Photos: © picture alliance pa
