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The Spider Murphy Gang 1982: "I already have her number too..."
Photo: United Archives / kpa / imago images
I can't remember where I first heard this song about 40 years ago, at least not in the "hit parade" with Dieter Thomas Heck, for whom the piece was said to be "too hot". Possibly on the radio, the WDR was more progressive than the Bayerischer Rundfunk, where the song was not allowed to be played. Because of the N-word. Well, not one, but the other. Okay, now it's getting a little muddled, that's what happens when you remember things that were a long time ago. So in order.
On December 7, the song "Skandal im Sperrgebiet" entered the lower ranks of the Official German Hit Parade.
Nine weeks later, on February 8, 1982, 40 years ago, it finally took first place.
It was the first and last time that the Bavarian rock 'n' roll band Spider Murphy Gang managed this feat.
The song stayed at the top for eight weeks.
So long that there are probably only a few people around 50 in Germany today who couldn't sing along to the text, at least in fragments, if they were woken from a deep sleep at three o'clock in the morning.
This should even work without the influence of alcohol, although perhaps not quite as smoothly.
The band around founding members Günther Siegl and Barny Murphy still exists today.
On her website, she reports that the song was selected as a release from the album "Dolce Vita" so that one could benefit from the sudden popularity of rock songs sung in dialect - "Verdamp lang ago" by Bap had its unexpected triumph in autumn 1981 started by the Federal Republic – but at the same time northerners could also understand the text.
Seen from Munich, people from the Lower Rhine region are of course also considered to be northerners (I know that, I am married to a Bavarian, I have fought this discussion countless times and lost every time), and I actually understood the people of Munich better than I did regionally and in terms of character much closer Cologne.
You sang High German with a soft touch of Munich, I'm sure you can hear it right away: "I've got her number too..."
Alone: Understanding and understanding are two different things.
Because what the text was about was a complete mystery to me, despite High German.
I was only ten.
The art of speaking about something that is actually kept quiet
I had heard of Munich before, but: »Hofbräuhaus«?
"House of Pleasure"?
"restricted area"?
"Hotel L'Amour"?
And then, of course, the N-word: "hookers"?
What was all this supposed to mean?
As far as I could put it together, it was about a Rosi who could be reached on the number thirty-two sixteen eight and who a lot of men wanted to call.
I didn't know why, it was much more important that you could sing along to the phone number by heart, then you were already a know-it-all.
So that's how it started with this strange penchant for special knowledge in matters of pop culture, which accompanies me to this day.
And it went further, much further.
At some point one of my friends claimed that the word "whore" was not proper, that you shouldn't actually say it, let alone sing it.
At that moment, I must have realized a lot about the possibilities of art to talk about something that is actually being kept silent, and with a shudder I understood why the song ended with the constant singing of “scandal”, with this hysterical pitch increase and the intensity of the drums.
It had gripped and swept me in an amazing way before, and even more so now.
I knew at least vaguely what a scandal was.
Definitely something the adults didn't like to talk about, which made them embarrassed.
And now to shout it out loud: what a liberation, even if you didn't even know what it was about!
We immediately tried out how it felt and roared the lyrics, of course preferring the parts with "hookers" and "scandal".
In our village, only a decrepit pony that stood on the neighboring property and calmly continued chewing grass got to hear it.
Nevertheless, perhaps it was then that I first became aware of the wonderful power of subversion that can be inherent in rock and pop music.
Today, whoever uses the word "whore" is no longer seen as a terror of the citizens, but as a despiser of women.
The other N-word, which was freely used back then, is now only used by racists.
The Spider Murphy Gang drummer, who used to thrash the skins so impressively, died last year.
Ironically, in Kamp-Lintfort, the city where I first heard the song 40 years ago.
Shortly thereafter I was there for a wedding and danced to it.
That wasn't subversive anymore, really.
But still powerful.
