Mein Land [English translation]

My dark country of victims and culprits,

I carry a part of your guilt.

Country of betrayees and betrayers,

I have to be humble and patient with you.

My grey country, which, bitter and flayed,

practices abject self-denial,

I suffer with you and from your wounds

And I know that they won't heal even given time.

My bright country of courageous and silent

upright people, unrecognized and unnamed,

I find myself in your will to freedom:

My mother country, my fatherland, my difficult country.

You practice pleasant behaviour,

diligent obeisance: on your knees!

Think one thing and say the other

and beg for a bit of sympathy.

And your masters serve obsessively,

so that people will believe their contrition.

They have chewed chalk for so long [to make the voice more pleasant]

that dust comes out whenever they open their mouth.

And those, for whom they claim to speak,

are left at the wayside unasked and overlooked

and keep you alive through their courage.

My mother country, my fatherland, my silent country.

Like pieces of ground to the soles of my shoes,

your pictures cling to me, they are disturbing and heavy:

the long-promised flourishing landscapes [old campaign slogan]

are empty, just a sea of ruins.

You were fooled and sold out and stood up

by soldiers of fortune, pirates, dawdlers,

just the theft victims remain,

the devil will take the hindmost now.

Forgotten and betrayed and dilapidated,

stranded and lost at the fast-food stand.

The sound of automats is coming from casinos.

My mother country, my fatherland, my poor country.

I am, the way that I am, one of your children.

We two didn't pick each other.

You often talked down to me, and

I often cursed your hypocrisy.

I cannot sing your anthem, hand on my heart,

looking at the flag. And even if I make an effort,

I cannot say a word like "proud" -

Stupidity and pride are cut from the same cloth!

I am attached to the people who live here,

to places, to certain events,

that my memories are woven around,

[I'm attached to] your melancholy, your primness.

I am attached to you and I am similar to you,

in your faults, the good and the bad.

I am your child in all your contradictions,

my mother country, my fatherland, my country.

• Artist:Reinhard Mey
• Album:Rühm Hart