Spiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern

Spiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern (Do not play with the grubby kids)[1] is a 1965 album by liedermacher (singer-songwriter) Franz Josef Degenhardt, named after the track of the same name. It was his second album, after Rumpelstilzchen. The songs also appeared as a 1969 book. The title of the album and the song became a catchphrase, and the title song is regarded as Degenhardt's most successful work.

Spiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern
Studio album by
Franz Josef Degenhardt
Released1965 (1965)
GenreProtest song
Length49:45
LabelPolydor
ProducerJimmy Bowien
Franz Josef Degenhardt chronology
Rumpelstilzchen
(1963)		 Spiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern
(1965)		 Väterchen Franz
(1966)

Themes
Franz Josef Degenhardt, author, singer and guitarist, in 1987

The album is a collection of songs criticising the bourgeois society in Germany after World War II with sarcasm and surrealism. It anticipated the 1968 student movement in West Germany. The singer "with the piercing voice and the powerfully plucked guitar" criticised nuclear war, class-based society and the war in Vietnam.[2] The title song became one of Degenhardt's best-known, in the style of a moritat. It tells the story of an upper-class boy who likes to play with workers' children, but is forced into an upper-class career to fulfil his parents' expectations.[3]

Track listing
  1. Spiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern
  2. Ein schönes Lied
  3. Deutscher Sonntag
  4. Auf der Espresso-Maschine
  5. Hochzeit
  6. Gelobtes Land
  7. Alte Freunde
  8. Wölfe mitten im Mai
  9. Der schwarze Mann
  10. Der Mann von nebenan
  11. Zwei und zwei
  12. Diesmal werd’ ich nicht
  13. Der, der meine Lieder singt

Reception

The first line of "Spiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern" became a frequently quoted phrase. The song was included in the popular song collection Die Mundorgel in 1968.[4]

In 2010, the album was ranked No. 42 among the 50 best German albums by a jury of the German edition of the Rolling Stone magazine, reasoning:

Ein Sittengemälde der Bundesrepublik Wirtschaftswunderdeutschland, Mitte der 60er-Jahre, dessen Titel längst ein geflügeltes Wort geworden ist. Der Bänkelsänger mit der schneidenden Stimme und der kräftig gezupften Gitarre rückt drei Jahre vor der Studentenbewegung der Spießigkeit und den nur teilweise versteckten Nazismen mit Spott, Witz und surrealer Poesie zu Leibe. […] Ein historisches Dokument und zugleich ein Werk, das heute immer noch Geltung besitzt. Auf dieser Platte sind 13 Lieder, die auch heute noch an den Halsspeck gehen.[2]

(A moral portrait of the Federal Republic of Wirtschaftswunder Germany, in the mid-60s, whose title has long since become a catchphrase. Three years before the student movement, the ballad singer with the piercing voice and the powerfully plucked guitar tackles the bourgeoisie and only partially hidden Nazisms with mockery, wit and surreal poetry. [...] A historical document and at the same time a work that is still valid today. There are 13 songs on this record that still get to your neck fat today.)

Reviewer Daniel Koch described the album as a moral portrait of the Federal Republic in the mid-60s, when the economy was successful (Wirtschaftswunder) but problems such as nuclear war, class differences and Vietnam were looming. Three years before the 1968 student movement in West Germany, Degenhardt tackled the upper class and its "only partially hidden Nazism", using wit and surreal poetry, with "the right images".[2] The reviewer called the album both a historical document and a work that is still valid today.[2] Degenhardt influenced generations of liedermacher, from Hannes Wader to Gisbert zu Knyphausen.[2] The title song is regarded as Degenhardt's most successful work,[3] an expression of opposition to the "bourgeois complacency and bigotry" ("bürgerliche Selbstgefälligkeit und Borniertheit") of the 1960s.[1][5]

References
  1. "Franz Josef Degenhardt / German lawyer, songwriter and performer who satirised what he perceived as the bourgeois complacency of his fellow countrymen". The Times. 28 December 2011. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  2. Koch, Daniel (7 October 2010). "Die 50 besten deutschen Alben I (Platz 50-36)". Rolling Stone (in German). Retrieved 4 January 2021.
  3. "Liedermacher Franz Josef Degenhardt gestorben". Frankfurter Rundschau (in German). 14 November 2011. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  4. Matthias Pesch (18 February 2003). "Die Mundorgel wird 50". Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger.
  5. ""Spiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern" / Liedermacher Franz Josef Degenhardt ist tot". Stern (in German). 14 November 2011. Retrieved 11 January 2021.

Further reading
  • Franz Josef Degenhardt: Spiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern: Balladen, Chansons, Grotesken, Lieder. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1969, ISBN 3-499-11168-3
  • Franz Josef Degenhardt: Kommt an den Tisch unter Pflaumenbäumen. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1986, ISBN 3-499-15774-8
  • Katharina Götsch: Linke Liedermacher. Limbus, Innsbruck 2007, ISBN 3-902534-04-4, pp. 60–64
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