Wortmann Brothers Archives - Bluegrass Today

Schnaps und Gefühl (Liquor and Feeling) video from The Wortmann Brothers

Our German bluegrass buddies, The Wortmann Brothers, have shared another of their clever songs, played in their own distinctive primitive bluegrass style.

The brothers, Frank on guitar and mandolin and Ulrich on banjo, have been involved with bluegrass since they were in college when they first came upon banjo music. The two, both high school teachers, continue to play together and write wonderfully sardonic songs in a traditional bluegrass form.

This latest is called Schnaps und Gefühl, which translates as Liquor and Feelings, about how the two never mix well.

Watch the video, and check out Ulrich’s translation below if your German is a bit shaky..

Du standest vorne weiter am Tresen

Das Glas vor dir, das war schon leer

Ich dachte’ das Schicksal würde grüßen

Ich trank nen Schnaps und du noch mehr

Refrain:

Schnaps und Gefühl das sind zwei Pferde

Auf die ein Sattel niemals passt

Schnaps und Gefühl das sind zwei Esel

Aus denen du besser Würste machst

Wir trafen uns auf ner Cocktailparty

Wir waren so zu wie es nur ging

Mit Tunnelblick sah’ aus wie Liebe

Beim Tageslicht war alles hin

Beim Häppchen an der Häppchentheke

Hauchtest du leise, dass du mich magst

Sechs Schnäpe später wuste ich die Antwort

Dein Blick war wässrig ich sprach ins Grab

You’re standing next to the counter

The drinking glass in front of you was already empty

I was thinking the destiny is giving a sign

I took a liquor and you even more

Chorus:

Liquor and feeling thats two horses

On which one saddle never fits

Liquor and feelings thats two donkeys

You better make sausages from it

We meet at a cocktail party

We were as drunk as drunk can be

With tunnel vision (of alcohol) it looks like love

With daylight it was all gone

While having an appetizer at the appetizer counter

You whispered gently that you like me

Six liquors later I knew my answer

Your glance was teary, I was talking to a grave

Ulrich also shared a translation of he and Frank’s exchange at the beginning of the video. He calls it “brother talk.”

“Nochmal, da, bei dir war das rhythmisch falsch!”

“Nein”-

“Okay, schniief.”

“Ich kann das gar nicht rhrytmisch falsch machen.”

“Let’s try again, you got the rhythm wrong!”

“No”

“Okay, (sniffing)”

“I can’t play rhythmically wrong.”

You’re welcome.

Bluegrass Beyond Borders: The Wortmann Brothers play their bluegrass in German

Sometimes, all it takes is determined devotion to live a life that finds meaning in music. That’s what it took for the Wortmann Brothers, Frank and Ulrich, to turn their attention to bluegrass. Early on, the German siblings shared a parallel existence, which was really no surprise considering that the pair have only two years difference in their ages. Born in the city of Bielefeld, located in East Westphalia, a region situated in the northeastern part of Germany near the North Sea, they pursued similar career paths even early on. They each joined their country’s armed forces after high school and subsequently resumed their studies at Westphalian Wilhelm University in Münster. Older brother Frank mastered in classics and philosophy while Ulrich gained his PhD in chemistry. These days, both brothers teach high school and lead otherwise average lives, both as married men.

That might be an otherwise ordinary tale were it not for the fact that early on they happened to witness a performance by a local skiffle band that featured a banjo player, leading them to hone a down-home discipline that initially seemed somewhat out of sync with the traditions they had been infused with early on.

Nevertheless, their own instincts took over, fed by an ever-increasing desire to further their bond with bluegrass. They invested in an Italian-made Eko banjo and a Framus guitar and started listening to some seminal sounds that helped stir their interest even more — the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s landmark album, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, a 1973 recording from Bill Monroe’s Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival, J.D. Crowes Blackjack album, various recordings by Bill Keith, and all the early collaborations and solo projects by Tony Trischka, Pete Wernick, Andy Statman, and Russ Barenberg.

“We ended up becoming faithful bluegrass traditionalists,” Frank explains. “If it ain’t got a banjo… well, you get the picture.”

The picture becomes clearer as Wortmann describes how the band that he and his brother founded came into being. “We had a jazz-influenced classmate on double bass — originally a tenor banjo player — and a Vassar Clements-admiring student playing fiddle,” he relates. “We did some gigs with them until our duties in the service led to our departure.”

Later, Frank and Ulrich formed another band, simply dubbed the Wortmann Brothers. It finds Frank playing guitar and mandolin, (“Unfortunately, my fiddle skills just didn’t get better,” he confesses) and Ulrich taking on banjo duties. Two friends, who happen to be a married couple, provide further support with bass and mandolin.

“Melodically, we mostly cover standard bluegrass material, but we prefer to sing in German,” Franks explains. “My brother writes all the lyrics, which are not necessarily related to the originals, but rather tell stories in a German musical tradition known as ‘’Neue Hamburger Schule.’ Basically, it’s a form of ’80s pop literature. We share our music on Zoom and using our I-pads. The results took YouTube by storm.”

(According to Wikipedia, the term Frank refers to, “The Hamburger Schule” (a German expression meaning ‘Hamburg School’), was a popular movement in Germany during the 1980s and early 1990s which promoted the use of the German language as a means of expression in popular music.)

The Wortmann Brothers mostly perform in their local environs, primarily in “Taverns and churches, university clubs and bars,” Frank explains. “In other words, in big venues,” he adds somewhat sardonically. “The Last time Germans went beserk was one-and-a-half thousand years ago.”

Hmmm, we’re not quite sure if that’s a good thing, or merely a statement about what it takes to inspire local enthusiasm. At any rate, Frank has a somewhat clearer response when he’s asked what it is about bluegrass that translates so well as an international language. “It’s acoustic, improvised, driving, and sad,” he suggests. It appears that those adjectives sum up the Wortmann Brothers’ appeal as well.

The Wortmann Brothers video for Nimm Mich Mit Wenn’s Abwärts Geht

Here’s something fun to start your first weekend in March.

Our friends, The Wortmann Brothers, have released a new video in their series of bluegrass classics translated into German. As always, they infuse their unique Continental humor into the translation, and the delivery.

This time out they’ve chosen Pick Me Up On Your Way Down, written by Harlan Howard as a hit for Charlie Walker in 1964, and since recorded by dozens of other country and bluegrass artists. And is their custom, the brothers don’t so much seek an exact translation, as one that uses German to convey the basic meaning with lyrics that fit the melody and the rhyming scheme.

Here’s their version, Nimm Mich Mit Wenn’s Abwärts Geht, complete with dry Wortmann humor.

Ulrich provided these lyrics with a loose English translation. My German is nonexistant, and he says his English is poor, so I suppose we’ll have to take his word for it.

Nimm Mich Mit Wenn’s Abwärts Geht
(Pick Me Up On Your Way Down)

Du stehst heute in der Mitte
(Today you are standing in the middle)
Hast die Krone auf und bitte:
(You carry the crown and please:)
Was sollte da jetzt wohl noch kommen?
(What should coming more then this)
Du hast alles mitgenommen
(You pick everything)

Du steht voll im Rampenlicht
(You are totally in the limelight)
Jeder kennt hier dein Gesicht
(Eyerybody knows your face)
Du braucht niemanden mehr zu fragen
(You don’t have to ask nobody)
Du hast’ geschafft, kann man so sagen
(You just made it, people say)

Nimm mich mit, wenn’s abwärts geht
(Pick me up, if it goes down)
Eine Wand im Wege steht
(If a wall is standing in your way)
Wenn die Diskokugel „Tschüss“ sagt
(If the disco ball says goodbye)
Und dein Schädel tief im Müll parkt
(and your head is parking deep in waste)
Wenn das Geld ganz plötzlich knapp ist
(If you are suddenly hard up for money)
Und du glaubst war alles Kappes
(And you thing every thing was wrong)
Weil sich gerade alles falsch dreht
(Cause eyerything is spining in another direction)
Nimm mich mit, wenn’s abwärts geht
(Pick me up, if it goes down)

Man wird die Krone von dir nehmen
(They will take off your crown)
In dem Moment, da wird es beben
(And in this moment it will quake)
Doch nur für dich wackelt der Boden
(But only for you the ground is wobbling)
Und du zählst dann zu den Doofen
(And you are member of the dumb)

Die nicht in der Mitte stehen
(Who are standing not in the middle)
Sich nicht um sich selber drehen
(Who are spining not round himself)
Schluss mit deinem falschen Lachen
(Stop the wrongly laughing)
Alles wird sich jetzt verflachen
(Everything is going flattening)

Nimm mich mit, wenn’s abwärts geht
(Pick me up if it goes down)

Everybody sing!

If anyone wants to tackle a better English translation, have at it!

Bluegrass Battle available online

Here’s some bluegrass fun from The Wortman Brothers of Germany. They have devised a computer game featuring themselves using MIT’s Scratch programming language.

The object of Bluegrass Battle is to maneuver the two bluegrass musicians, representing the Wortmanns, to safety. Game play involves using the arrow keys on your computer to avoid the various fresh fruit being thrown stageward by an unappreciative audience.

To understand the game, it helps to realize that these two are jolly jokers of the first order who have become recognized online for the many humorous and often silly videos they create. Some are more serious musically, often taking American bluegrass standards and rewriting them in German.

The graphics are a bit primitive by modern game standards, but the responses of the characters as they dodge smashing pumpkins are quite clever. Youngsters should find it engaging.

Ulrich Wortman, the banjo player in the game (and in real life) shared the genesis of Bluegrass Battle.

“I got the idea while talking with Ben Wright, banjo player with the Henhouse Prowlers, at the occasion of their concert in Krefeld, Germany. He told me the following story: After some gig a young man stepped up to him telling him, that he (Ben) was the reason, why he picked up the banjo. Ben – being humble enough to ask whether there weren’t any other banjo players of more fame responsible for this – learned that the young man was an devoted WTA 5-gamer, and that it was in fact the Henhouse Prowlers playing that you could hear, when some gangsters in this game tune in the country station on radio.

I thought it to be a brilliant idea getting young folks interested in bluegrass this way. And as my band, The Wortmann Brothers, don’t necessarily play on a level that makes us attractive for game producers, I decided to create my own game with our music providing the bluegrass background. It’s a German version of the East Virgina Blues, aptly enough titled Ostwestfalen-Blues (East Westphalian Blues), as this is the part of the country me and my brother come from.

Of course this enterprise is a serious matter, and the game should be considered a training for going out on stage, trying to keep smiling while the John-Hardy-terror-loop keeps rolling.”

Scratch is a simplified computer language designed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab to help foster interest in programming among young people. They web site allows anyone to try their hand at writing simple games and programs at no cost using the online tools.

To play Bluegrass Battle free online, just visit this link.

Hats off to The Wortman Brothers for devising this wondrous waste of time.

La La La La Lah from The Wortmann Brothers

Here’s a somber sounding new video from Germany. It’s a new release from The Wortmann Brothers, featuring Ulrich Wortmann on banjo and vocals.

Watching the video for the first time, with its gray, gritty industrial scenes and lonesome banjo accompaniment, I thought surely it must be a tragic song about desperation and loneliness. Nope, Ulrich told me. It’s a love song.

For the sake of non-German speakers (like me), Ulrich shared a translation.

La La La La Lah
by Ulrich Wortmann

Morgens gehe ich am liebsten in Büro

(in the morning I like to go at the office)

Mittags muss es auf meinem Teller dampfen

(at noon I’m looking for steaming dinner)

Bei Regen schlage ich den Kragen hoch

(when it is raining I turn up my collar)

Und du trägst heute einfach rot

(And you are wearing just red)

Frischer Wind ist für mich verheerend,

(fresh wind is devastatingly for me)

Ich lasse das Fenster lieber zu

(I better close the window)

Nur ein inneres Hallenbad konnte mich bisher retten

(only a internal indoor swimming pool can rescue me)

Und du beißt dir auf deine Lippen.

(and you bite on your lips)

Ref. Mach mir doch die Handschellen auf

(Open my handcuffs)

Wir rennen schnell durch den Weizen

(we are running in the fields)

dann können uns die Bluthunde von mir aus beißen

(after it let the bloodhound bite us)

Irgendwann in dem Kleidermarkt,

(somewhere down the road in a clothing shop)

reißt du mir die Sträflingskluft vom Leib

(you pull my convict jacket)

Und du du trägst ein Goldkettchen, la la la la la ,- bitte bleib

(And you you are wearing a golden neckplace La la la la lah please stay!)

Auf die Frage, was mich langweilt

(when you ask me what is the most boring thing)

sage ich es ist mir heut egal.

(I would say I do not care)

Auf der Flucht mache ich besser diesmal nicht schlapp

(while escaping I don’t want to get flabby this time)

Sonst schließt der Wachmann nach mir ab

(if so the guard lock up the door)

Traditional bluegrass in German

It is becoming more and more common for bluegrass artists in non-English speaking parts of the world to write and sing songs in their native tongues.

In the earliest days of bluegrass reaching beyond North America, most students of the music focused on what was being recorded here in the States, often memorizing lyrics phonetically with no real knowledge of English.

As non-US bluegrass has matured, it seems like a natural progression for original music to be composed in their own languages, though perhaps the majority of European and Asian bands continue to perform primarily in English.

Here’s a new video from The Wortmann Brothers, who write and perform in both English and their native German, creating new songs from their own imaginations, and reworking popular melodies into new stories. Ei und Hering (Egg and Fish) is set to the familiar tune of No Mother Or Dad.

Ulrich Wortman, who plays banjo in the video, provided this translation of the chorus:

Das neue Jahr wird richtig gut
The next year will be coming really good

du schaffst das ohne Selbstbetrug
you can do it without self-deception

dazu trinkst du dann noch ein Bier
and by the way you are drinking a beer

und Ei und Hering stehen vor dir.
and egg and fish stand in front of you.

He details the story thusly:

“Your farm has burned down. You remember this while hearing young people shouting and drinking. Now you are working as a butcher in a biomarket, while in front of you the Porsche driver is telling you how hard live is.”

Sounds like bluegrass to me!

He also shared a video of them singing in English on a clever song (and concept) called Alien Morning.

We’ll have a review soon from Sweden’s Spinning Jennies, who write and perform in Swedish, often utilizing native folk melodies and stories.