Bremen Nacht

13. The Fall
Bremen Nacht (1988)
Mark E Smith makes feeling ill at a gig in a German college sound like the worst case of paranoia. He later suggested his maladies were caused by the ghosts of Nazis who had died in the allied bombing of the city.

You've got one song, "Bremen Nacht", where you sing in German about a bad show in Bremen – was that based on an actual event?

Yeah, yeah, it was a very strange thing! It was a bit like a firestorm; my whole body felt like it went up, like it'd been burnt and bruised. Its not a nice experience at all. At the time I thought I'd been pushing myself a bit too hard, hadn't been eating properly, drinking too much... But then we found out six months later that the building we had played in had been firebombed by the Royal Air Force. A bit fucking weird!

Nach „Hotel Bloedel" kommt mit „Bremen Nacht" die inspirierende Wirkung einer Deutschland-Tournee erneut zum Tragen. Dabei hiess es früher, du magst Deutschland nicht besonders.

“Das stimmt nicht. Hier gefällt es mir eigentlich am besten. Der Song handelt von den Geschehnissen bei unserem letzten Auftritt in Bremen, es war in einer Universität, niedrige Decken, ziemlich voll. Ich fühlte mich nicht besonders, hatte vielleicht nicht gut gegessen, und nach dem Konzert begann ich, mich sehr merkwürdig zu benehmen, als wäre ich nicht Herr meiner selbst.

Ich bin im Hotel herumgelaufen, habe überall geklopft und gefragt 'ist Steve Hanley hier?'. Und Brix schrie immerfort, ich solle ins Zimmer zurückkommen. Ich bekam Hassanfalle und fürchtete, es sei der Teufel in mir, obwohl ich wusste, das konnte nicht sein. Aber als ich mich ins Bett legte, hatte ich überall am Körper diese roten Stellen, als hätten sich Fingernägel in mich gebohrt. Mein Rücken hatte rote Flecken, wie verbrannt. Das hielt acht Stunden. Jeder hat mirdanach gesagt, ich wäre nicht mehr als ich selbst zu erkennen gewesen. Es muss irgendein Geist gewesen sein. Vielleicht ist das Gebäude während des Kriegs bombardiert worden oder ähnliches. Während des Auftritts fühlte ich, wie etwas an meinem Bein zog, aber das Publikum war nicht in Reichweite."

Vielleicht Asbest. Vielleicht hatte vorher auch eine junge britische Gitarren-Band dort gespielt, und die Mauern wollten sich jetzt wehren.

“Ja, die meisten sind schrecklich. Aber nicht alle. Ich bringe einen Sampler auf meinem Cog Sinister-Label heraus. Next Step sind gut, wie eine Kreuzung aus Public Image und Schoolly-D. Die Walking Seeds aus Liverpool sind jetzt auf Speedmetal, waren aber vorher auch sehr gut.”

After "Hotel Bloedel", the inspiring effect of a tour of Germany comes back to life with "Bremen Nacht". It used to be said that you don't particularly like Germany.

“That's not true. I actually like it best here. The song is about what happened at our last gig in Bremen, it was in a university, low ceilings, pretty full. I didn't feel great, I might not have eaten well, and after the concert I began to act very strangely, as if I wasn't in control of myself.

I was walking around the hotel, knocking all over the place and asking 'is Steve Hanley here?'. And Brix kept yelling to come back into the room. I got attacks of hatred and feared it was the devil in me, even though I knew it couldn't be. But when I went to bed, I had these red spots all over my body, as if fingernails had bored into me. My back had red spots, as if burned. That lasted eight hours. Afterwards everyone said to me that I could no longer have been recognized as myself. It must have been some ghost. Maybe the building was bombed during the war or something like that. During the performance I felt something pull on my leg, but the audience was out of reach."

Maybe asbestos. Maybe a young British guitar band had played there before, and the walls wanted to defend themselves now.

“Yes, most of them are awful. But not all. I'm putting out a sampler on my Cog Sinister label. Next Step are good, like a cross between Public Image and Schoolly-D. The Walking Seeds from Liverpool are now on Speedmetal, but were also very good before. "

We were just messing about wit soul riffs, that was where Bremen Nacht came from; us jamming on Higher Ground. We'd jam on a riff, take it apart and then repeat it and repeat it and repeat it, breaking it down into the microscopic pieces of that song, and making a whole song about that microscopic piece that we liked. We were kind of like magpies, just picking up little phrases and playing them to death.

I remember being obsessed as a child by the folk tale Town Musicians of Bremen. It's about a group of animals that use their voices to scare people. I am sure I talked to Mark about that a lot. That was part of the spark for the name of Bremen Nacht.

The sunlit Bremen day
By Tonsillitis size train station Hof
Could only in one way fail to impress
This on drinks door I did lay

The sunlit Bremen day
By tonsilitis skies train station hops
Could only in one way fail to impress
This on drinks door I did lay

"Tonsillitus skies (...) station hop burnt my brains and burnt the top of my skull off." (amended lyrics to "Bremen Nacht")