The following was
a jotted down reply to journalist Bob Wayte about what I remembered of the events of 1982/3, when I had a minor hit record
in Germany with a song I had written about Karl-Heinz Rummenigge
Dear Bob
Yes indeed the the story of Alan and Denise
and Rummenigge would make a strange and intriguing footnote to any account of modern European football, or indeed Popular
music and its inner workings.
As
it is Alan and Denise are shackled in history to Kalle. They appear in every biography of the great man, the boxed set
of the histories of German football or the team Bayern Munich, the wikipedia biog, the music biogs of Wolf Maahn (German pop
star who produced the record 'Rummenigge') and BAP - the Cologne supergroup who played on the record for a bit
of a laugh - never dreaming it would be held against them on the day of judgement!
I must have written the song around May 1982. At the time I was working as a singer/guitarist
in the pubs and clubs of the midlands. My wife had become disabled aged 26 with rheumatoid arthritis, so I had been forced
give up my teaching job for something with very flexible hours - to allow me to take care of her. I should have preferred
to be a folksinger in the more refined folk music clubs - but I've always had a streak of populism in my work as a songwriter
that just won't cut it amongst the posh middle classes.
One night I was sitting at home strumming my guitar and watching a footy match on telly.
The game was England versus West Germany (as it was back then). All I remember of the moment was the KHR scored a terrific
goal. One perfect movent with no hesitation - such was his awareness of the pitch, the disposiion of the players and
the ball. He was very near the halfway line. He didn't seem to receive, hold or steady the ball. It
ws just one fabulous kick that left everyone from the goalie to the ref, completely open mouthed.
Somehow John Motson found the words that expressed the
feelings of everybody, Karl! Heinz! Rummenigge.......! What a man!
I think I started amusing myself playing with Motty's words about ten seconds later.
A week later I had the song.
Eventually
I recorded the song that summer - along with four others in a little demo studio in Leeds - run by a friend of a friend,
a bloke called Len Liggins! I think I paid about thirty quid for thr session.
Rummenigge ..... posted to friend who had a record out in Germany. She sent me the
address of her record company. Intercord in Stuttgart. The A & R man told me afterwards that he HAD
thought it was rubbish. However he was sitting in a cafe and a friend asked him to play the demo to the other diners.
By the end of the second verse, the whole restraurant including the waiters were joining in!
They phoned me. I explained - I wanted a German group
full of sexy young girls to sing it. Later I found out that also on the label were Eddie Grant and Vince Clarke ( at
that time with Yazoo) - so it could easily have made it to the discos of New York when Kalle was with Cosmos.
However you can always tell a German, but you can't
tell him much. Intercord weren't willing to finance it them selves. They gave it Gerig Musik for a consideration.
'This is what we call a schlager song' opined Hans
Gerig over dinner in Dusseldorf , after meeting Denise and I at the airport on the day we recorded it. 'In schlagers songs
- there are oompah bands, girls in short skirts and we Germans, we wave our beermugs! Trust me...... its a hit!"
What he didn't tell me was, it was such an obvious hit - he thought he could piss about with it and do a few favours.
He gave the project to Wolf Maahn, a young singer songwriter he was very any anxious to sign. Wolf in turn gave it to
the guitarist out of his own band and the drummer out of the supergroup BAP to do the actual music. I was nearly in
tears when I heard the soundtrack - it sounded like no hit record I had ever heard. The A and R man said,
'Come on! we're here! lets do it! If we don't like it we can throw it away. '
But I could tell, already the property had been bought
sold and paid for.
Another
thing I didn't know was that the heavy money was on the German version being a hit. There was fierce competition
amongst the celebs of Germany to record the German version. All famous people. The job eventually went to Cleo - a soap
star and Wolf, an ex goalkeeper for Real Madrid.
The real cock up came a month after release when they released the German version, by then we were
in the lower rungs of the charts, and the sales of German version added to our problems. The competition from the German
version stopped us getting any higher in the charts, and thus stopped the airplay.
For Alan and Denise the dream was over.
Yes we did get to meet Kalle. He was smiling
gracious and answered our gushing fan questions. It was in a room at the Intercontinental in Dusseldorf. Our And
R man told us , 'You would be angry if you knew how much money he was getting paid just to talk to you and have his photograph
taken with you........'
Apparently
he sent us a football shirts and some fan things, but we never got them ....they were used in a competition as prizes......
Not long after that my Father in law got very ill and soon
I was taking care of three disabled people - my wife , mother in law and father in law - so that was the end of dreaming about
being a popstar. When its like that, you resume your life any way you can . The money from the record meant that
atleast for a couple of years we had no real financial worries.
A couple of years ago, when Germany hosted the world cup, we were invited back to
sing our song RUMMENIGGE as one othe most popular football songs in the history of Germany. We were ranked 17.
And the crowd in the TV studio in Cologne could still remember the words!
I hope this mish mash of recollection answers some of your questions
