http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/columns/story?id=788012&cc=5901&ver=us
May 20, 2010
We only win when we're singing.
By Uli Hesse
Now that the Eurovision Song Contest is almost upon us, I guess it's finally time to talk about David Hasselhoff and the World Cup.
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The hand of Hoff: David Hasselhoff is a cult hero among a (very) small minority of the German population
If you're American and have no idea what the Eurovision Song Contest is - it's what brought you Abba. If you're Martian and have no idea who David Hasselhoff is - he's an actor and singer (I'm using these terms in a very broad sense) who is supposed to be hugely popular in Germany.
On his official website, the former Fulham and Ipswich footballer Moritz Volz famously has a section called "The Hoff", where he states: "Being German, I love David Hasselhoff. It's actually the law back in the Motherland. For me the Hoff is almost like some kind of higher spirit. Hoff-ness is everywhere. The Hoff is a big inspiration - in times of trouble I often ask myself 'how would the Hoff deal with this situation...?'"
As you know, he's kidding. At least I strongly hope that you know this. I once talked to a lady in London who took all this gushing at face value and was flabbergasted when I assured her Volz was actually taking the mickey. Which not only tells you the English really do think all Germans love David Hasselhoff, they also think we are incapable of humour. When, of course, it can only be one or the other.
Then again, I can understand why we have this image of being Hasselhoff disciples. The television series Knight Rider was very popular in Germany, then Baywatch made a splash and Hasselhoff's song "Looking for Freedom" was number one in the German charts for eight weeks in 1989.
Some well-meaning people stubbornly defend this country's honour by pointing out that the Berlin Wall fell that year, arguing people just weren't themselves and bought the record mainly because the song's key word is "freedom".
Sorry, boys, we can't be let off the hook that easily. Because the truth of the matter is that "Looking for Freedom" went to number one as early as April 3, long before we had any idea a change was gonna come. (The day the Wall fell, "Lambada" was topping the charts and would stay there for another two and a half weeks.)
Oh, by the way: if you're wondering if I'll ever turn the corner and mention football again, let me tell you that the Hoff teaches you that one must always keep the faith and have patience.
So there are no two ways about it: Hasselhoff scored a hit with that ditty because Germans liked him and liked the song. And that had nothing to do with any Wall but everything to do with the man who wrote the song and produced it, because he sure knew his market. This man is, interestingly, called Jack White.
I say interestingly because of course we're not talking about the Jack White from Detroit, of White Stripes and Raconteurs fame. (He wasn't yet fourteen at that time.) You should, however, bear in mind that this younger Jack White also has some sort of football connection. His "Seven Nation Army" is, after all, by now a de facto terrace anthem in some places.
Back to the original Jack White, Hasselhoff's producer. His less groovy real name is Horst Nussbaum and he was born in Cologne in 1940. Before he found his true calling, the music business, he played football better than you and me and most people we know.
In the two years immediately preceding the formation of the Bundesliga, Nussbaum was good enough to run out for Viktoria Cologne in the Oberliga West, then one of the country's five highest divisions.
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Horst Nussbaum aka Jack White is responsible for some painful German World Cup anthems
Intriguingly, he played on the same Viktoria team as no less than five men destined to find football fame. Erich Ribbeck and Jurgen Sundermann are the names that may ring the bell loudest. Then there were Carl-Heinz Rühl, who went on to win the Cup with Cologne FC, and Willibert Kremer, who later coached Bayer Leverkusen to the Bundesliga. Finally, Nussbaum was also a team-mate of Gero Bisanz, who would become our women's national team's first coach, leading them to a bunch of titles.
In the next two seasons, Nussbaum played in Germany's (then admittedly multi-tiered and semi-pro) second division, for Pirmasens and Zweibrücken. In 1965, he became a full-blown professional by signing with PSV Eindhoven of the Dutch Eredivisie.
Due to his later career, you can find quite a few profiles and biographies of Nussbaum on the internet. Most claim his biggest sporting success was coming second in the Eredivisie with PSV, but that can't be. Eindhoven finished as runners-up in 1963-64, when Nussbaum was still playing for Pirmasens.
Be that as it may, in the long run it would prove to be more important that Nussbaum also liked to entertain his team-mates on coach rides by singing and playing the guitar. In 1966, the legendary coach Hennes Weisweiler told his friend Hans Bertram about Nussbaum, and Bertram pricked up his ears.
Bertram was a producer of so-called "schlager" records (a Northern European form of pop music the members of Abba actually cut their teeth warbling). He had just recorded Franz Beckenbauer's first single, which would reach the lower regions of the charts in December. Bertram hooked up with Nussbaum and convinced the footballer that he had the voice and especially the good looks to take the music world by storm. He also rechristened him Jack White.
Nussbaum/White, who at that time bore more than just a passing resemblance to Rudi Assauer, may have been handsome, but his first single, "Ein paar Tränen" (A Few Tears), still bombed. Yet he'd been bitten by the bug and decided to finish his professional football career to metamorphose into Jack White for good. He would continue to play as an amateur, though, and even ran out for Tennis Borussia Berlin in a Cup game against Cologne FC at age 36.
Oh, by the way: if you're wondering if I'll ever turn the corner and mention the World Cup, let me tell you that the Hoff teaches you must always trust.
As a producer and songsmith, White was more successful than as a crooner. By the early 1970s, he'd had so many hits in Germany (none of which you'll know if you're not German and none of which you'll want to hear) that he was the man to approach when the German FA, the DFB, had an idea in 1974.
Four years previously, England's national team had recorded a song for the 1970 World Cup, "Back Home", which had reached number one on the UK singles charts. And with the World Cup in Germany approaching, the DFB asked White to come up with a tune and produce it with the German team.
That resulted in "Fussball ist unser Leben" (Football Is Our Life), the first of the official German World Cup songs featuring the team and probably still the most famous one. However it wasn't as popular as people think: White's song only went to number 27, whereas the record cut four years later was a top-three hit. It was called "Buenos dias, Argentina" and, perhaps thankfully, reduced the role of the team to that of a background choir, as the real vocal duties were handled by the singer Udo Jurgens, an Austrian.
Following the success of "Buenos dias, Argentina", the national team recorded another four official songs. For the 1994 World Cup, they even cut a record with the Village People, probably the low point of a story that doesn't have many highs to begin with. Maybe the pairing didn't seem quite so bizarre at the time, considering the Village People's "Go West" was popular on terraces after the Pet Shop Boys had covered it. Still, having the national team back gay icons and sing "We're gonna make it, get it up and shake it" ... the mind boggles.
As this disaster was unfolding, Jack White had problems of his own. He'd made a ton of money with David Hasselhoff in Germany and with Laura Branigan in the US, and a good way to spend it seemed to be - Tennis Borussia Berlin.
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Village People: Jurgen Klinsmann, Rudi Voller, Stefan Kuntz , Lothar Matthaus, Andreas Brehme and Thomas Helmer all looked a little different before the 1994 World Cup
White served as the club's president from 1992 to 1995. (During which time, incidentally, he signed his former team-mate Willibert Kremer as coach, then fired him, then hired him again.) It all ended up in tears, as Tennis Borussia later took White to court over money the club - according to White - owed him. Today, White says his period in office cost him 10 million Marks.
And so, in the mid-90s, Jack White finally severed his ties with football for good, while the national team at last stopped recording official World Cup songs. It seemed a sensible development. Initially.
But of course the fact that the national team decided to stay out of recording studios didn't mean others would follow their example. Quite the contrary. I think there were at least eight different World Cup songs dropped on a largely innocent public four years ago, among them a record by the Bochum-born musician Herbert Gronemeyer, a song from the Munich trio Sportfreunde Stiller or a single cut by the comedian Oliver Pocher. The singer Sasha even did a song for the World Cup on home soil that bore the mystifying title "Goodbye".
That's why a part of me, probably the ears, dreads the coming summer weeks. Just the other day I very briefly listened to a new World Cup song by two DJs who call themselves, believe it or not, the Mallorca Cowboys. For a few fleeting moments I hoped they were just taking the mickey.
Which leads us back to Hasselhoff. They say he is now on the wagon and attempting a comeback. He was even in Germany last month, ostensibly to search for family ancestors near Kassel. His old mentor Jack White, meanwhile, is in store for a pretty pricey divorce and could certainly use a hit record. And Germany haven't won a World Cup since they stopped singing.
Putting one and one together, I can just see, if not hear, the German World Cup song to end all German World Cup songs. Words and music by Horst Nussbaum, lead vocals by none other than the Hoff, backed by Poldi and Schweini. And Moritz Volz will surely agree to a cameo in the video.
