Monday, April 26, 2004

At the Berlin Krafterk show, the cheers during the opening of "Autobahn" were enormous. In Toronto, the reaction was also energetic, but it is arguably Kraftwerk's best known song, so that's somewhat expected. In Berlin it was something different, something I don't think foreigners (like me) can completely appreciate. Because it's not MY highway. There is a lot to be proud of -- for at a time when Germany was overrun with British and American culture, Kraftwerk broke the mold by being a German band with a German name, singing in German about German things. But this bit of sociology is lost on many people who went to gigs in either city, so it's more than just having been there to appreciate the significance of the song. This home country advantage, isn't even something one could consciously put their finger on, for it's not like a Berliner could, even in principle, answer the question "so, were you cheering so loudly because you were paying homage to the sociological significance of Kraftwerk's trumpeting of German culture in the face of Anglophone cultural saturation, of was there another reason"?

Think about The Tragically Hip's "Fifty Mission Cap". If you aren't from Canada, you probably don't know the song. If you are, but aren't from Ontario, you probably don't give a crap about it.

The last goal he ever scored
won the Leafs the cup
They didn't win another until 1962,
the year he was discovered.

Non-hockey fans won't even understand what the paragraph means. Why do people in Southern Ontario get such a kick from those lines? What is it about a song that cites a Leafs win? You could spend hours explaining the Ontarian hockey cult to a non-Canadian, even a non-Canadian Hip fan (if there are any) and they'd never quite get it. This is the best comparison to the "Autobahn effect" I could come up with (that, and Stompin' Tom's backcatalogue).

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