Man Against Man

 
 

Mann gegen Mann (Man against Man) is a song from the German band Rammstein. This song was released in March of 2006, and was the third and final single from Rammstein’s album, Rosenrot. The song portrays a man with strong, repressed homosexual desires, and it is the first Rammstein music video to have nudity since the music video for their cover of Depeche Mode‘s Stripped, and it is the second track on Rosenrot. Mecano‘s Mujer contra mujer (Woman against woman) was a source of inspiration for Rammstein.

 
 

Destiny smiled on me
and gave me a present
Threw me on a warm star [1]
So close to the skin, so far from the eye
I take my destiny in my own hands
My desire is manned

Where the fresh water dies
because it taints itself in salt
I keep the Little Prince in mind
A king without a queen
When a woman is mistaken about me
then the bright world is confused

Man against man
My skin belongs to the gentlemen
Man against man
Birds of a feather flock together
Man against man
I am the servant of two masters
Man against man
Birds of a feather flock together

I am the corner of all rooms
I am the shadow of all trees
No link is missing in my chain [2]
when lust pulls from behind
My family calls me a traitor [3]
I am the nightmare of all fathers

Man against man
My skin belongs to the gentlemen
Man against man
Birds of a feather flock together

Man against man
But my heart freezes on some days
Man against man
Cold tongues that beat there

Gay-ah [4]

I’m not interested in balance
The sun shines in my face
But my heart freezes on some days
Cold tongues that beat there

Gay-ah
Man gayfor man [5]

 
 

[1] “Warm” means the same as the English word “warm”, but also is slang for “homosexual”. Thus, the star is either warm or gay, or both.

[2] “Glied” can mean both “link” (of a chain) and “member” – that is, “penis”.

[3] “Geschlecht” can mean many things: “sex”, “gender”, “family”, “house”, “generation”, etc. It can also be short for “Geschlechtsteil” which means “genitals”.

[4] The screaming (“Ah”) has been combined with “Schwuler” to make “Schwulah”. That, or it’s similar to “playa” as opposed to “player”, just changing the ending to sound “hip”.

[5] Gegen and “gay gen” sound the same. The former means “against”, the latter “gay for”.

 
 

To watch the music video, please take a gander at The Genealogy of Style’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Genealogy-of-Style/597542157001228?ref=hl

A Song Dedicated to Dalí

Cover design by Studio Gatti. Photograph by Alejandro Cabrera

 
 

Eungenio Salvador Dalí is taken from Mecano’s album Descanso dominical, (1988), which was also recorded in French and Italian and was published in Germany and Japan. Mecano were a Spanish techno-pop band formed in the early ’80s by brothers Nacho and José Maria Cano, who were joined by singer Ana Torroja.One line in the El Blues del Esclavo (The blues of the slave), inspired this album’s title. El blues del esclavo is a satire of the abolition of slavery in the United States and the struggle of Martin Luther King.

The lyrics of Eungenio Salvador Dalí are quite hard to translate. Please note that some of the words used on these lyrics do not exist, and were created for this song, only for musical sounding. Sometimes, it is possible to replace them for other words, and sometimes it is not. In the latter, the Spanish “words” were kept originally. For instance, the title of the song “Eungenio” means the mix of two words One/Un and Genius/Genio, and were mixed to sound as a Spanish personal name: Eugénio, just to create the impression that the full name of Dali was Eugénio Salvador Dalí.

 
 

Dalí draws himself
Shivers his bubble, taking away his heartbeats
Dalí fades himself
Because this washer does not distinguishes weaves

He notices that and scared, he laments
Geniuses should not die
They’re more than eighty the ones that curve your bones
“Eugenius” Salvador Dalí

Rococo moustache
Where the genius ends and where the nut starts
Dazzled eyes
Where the genius ends end where the fairy starts

All the beauty is compressed in your head
Just like a pressure cooker
And it’s the steam that is leaving by the weight
Magic light in Cadaqués

If you reincarnate in something
Please do it as a pencil or a brush
And your silky skin
Let her reincarnate as clothes or paper
If you reincarnate in a body
Please reincarnate in you
Because we don’t have enough geniuses
“Eugenius” Salvador Dalí

Realistic and surrealistic
With impressionistic light and impressive outline
Colourist delirium
Colour and oculist with delirious eyes

In your trowel you mix mythic ascetics
With bayonets and with teats
And in your brain you mix Finery, God and pesetas
Good Catalan anchoret

If you reincarnate in something
Please do it as a pencil or a brush
And your silky skin
Let her reincarnate as clothes or paper
If you reincarnate in a body
Please reincarnate in you
We want geniuses alive
We want you to be here

 
 

To watch the movie clip of this song, please take a gander at The Genealogy of Style‘s Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Genealogy-of-Style/597542157001228?ref=hl