One of the famous videos of the Rammstein group was filmed for the song “Mein herz brennt”. The main meaning of the clip, whose name can be translated as “My heart is on fire”, is to demonstrate the process of destruction of the child’s psyche by adults. An important point is that the video partially reflects the biography of the band’s lead singer, Till Lindemann, who experienced physical and psychological abuse from his own father in childhood.
The meaning of the song «Mein Herz Brennt» by Rammstein
“Now, kids, pay attention: I brought you something . ” These are not just two lines from the Rammstein song “Mein Herz brennt” ( My heart is on fire ), but a greeting from Sandmann ( lit. “Sandman” ) – the hero of the German program for the smallest TV viewers, who are told a short story shortly before bedtime. By the way, the working title of the new song was also “Sandmann”.
But this song is not about the good dreams that the Sandman brings, and he himself, by the way, is not always a positive character: according to the legends about the Sandman, he brings nightmares to those who misbehave, but more on that, of course, in the children’s program is not told.
If we look at the world as it is, not every childhood is beautiful and carefree, where you leave the door to the nursery open and a warm light is visible through the crack. It is about the dark side of children’s life, about fears and cruelty, that Till Lindemann tells. So let’s take a closer look at the text.
Nun liebe Kinder gebt fein Acht
The introduction begins with the Sandman’s greeting: ” Attention, children… ”
Ich bin die Stimme aus dem Kissen
I am the voice from the pillow.This line can be viewed in two ways. If you lie down on the pillow very quietly, then every rustle and beat of the heart is heard, and also, for example, in silence you can distinguish the voice of conscience. On the other hand, the voice from the pillow can be a hint of a monster under the bed that likes to hide there – the biggest fear of many children.
Ich hab euch etwas mitgebracht
I brought you something. The Sandman always brings something with him for the night. All phrases of the Sandman are cheerful and friendly, the characters are positive, and the stories have a good ending. Nothing bad can happen, but the next line is sobering.
Hab es aus meiner Brust gerissen
I tore my heart out of my chest.The phrase “rip your heart out of your chest” is often used when talking about unconditional parental love. On the other hand, people say this when they are incredibly hurt. Break your heart into pieces to stop feeling. And those who no longer feel anything can not suffer themselves, but they can freely inflict pain on others.
Mit diesem Herz hab ich die Macht Die Augenlieder zu erpressen
With him I can close your eyelids. These lines are really interesting. We don’t know why it was done. The sight of a heart in the hands evokes a double feeling, since not everything that is done from the heart and out of love is good. Because of love, we endure a lot of torment, do not see injustice and violence, tolerate oppression and are vulnerable to blackmail.
Ich singe bis der Tag erwacht
I will sing until dawn. At night, only one voice can be heard – the voice of the Sandman, telling his songs and stories. During the day it has no effect.
Ein heller Schein am Firmament
Mein Herz brennt
A bright light in the firmament burns my heart. This is the beginning and the end of the night. The Sandman’s reign begins at moonrise and ends at sunrise. Burning heart as a symbol of hot love? But the phrase “ something is burning in my soul ” is also common, which speaks of the importance of what is happening, of anxiety and the need to help. In the heart, joy and sadness are combined in equal parts, and a burning heart is a symbol of two parallel experiences at the same time.
Sie kommen zu euch in der Nacht: Dämonen Geister schwarze Feen
They come to you at night: demons, ghosts and dark fairies. This is familiar to all of us, not just children. At night, when we are alone in bed or in a room, they come – demons and monsters that we were afraid of as children. In adulthood, demons come in the form of fears, terrible memories, and doubts.
Sie kriechen aus dem Kellerschacht
They crawl out of the basement. The basement in childhood seemed like a big creepy cave. There was a different light, smell and noise. The most dangerous creatures live in the lowest part of the house, and there the most terrible secrets lie and sleep. If there is a place for evil in the house, then in the basement, and only at night, when the whole house is as dark as in the basement, does it emerge. The night creatures ascend very slowly into the upper room.
und werden unter euer Bettzeug sehen
And look under the covers. And they find us. No matter how we pressed against the wall and hid under the covers. They still scare the hell out of us or maybe catch us doing things we shouldn’t do.
Nun liebe Kinder gebt fein Acht
Ich bin die Stimme aus dem Kissen
I ch hab euch etwas mitgebracht
Ein heller Schein am Firmament
Mein Herz brennt
Now children be careful
I am the voice from the pillow
And I brought you something
A bright glow in the firmament –
It burns like this my heart!
Sie kommen zu euch in der Nacht
Und stehlen eure kleinen heißen Tränen
They come to you at night and steal your little hot tears.That’s it, the purpose of nightmares is to make children (and adults) cry. Spirits and demons are collecting those tears for someone else. For the Sandman?
Sie warten bis der Mond erwacht
They are waiting for the moon to appear. The moon wakes up only when it’s dark outside, which means it’s night. During the day we hide our pain, emotional or even physical, but in the evening and at night we let sorrow and suffering take over.
Und drücken sie in meine kalten Venen
And press them into my cold veins. With tears of pain and suffering, we breathe life into our fears and memories, let the demon come to life. Lindemann sings from the perspective of the Sandman himself, who feasts when children (and adults) cry. After all, his role is to bring dreams, and with them nightmares.
Nun liebe Kinder gebt fein Acht
Ich bin die Stimme aus dem Kissen
I ch hab euch etwas mitgebracht
Ein heller Schein am Firmament
Mein Herz brennt
Now children be careful
I am the voice from the pillow
And I brought you something
A bright glow in the firmament –
It burns like this my heart!
This song is a perfect example of the interplay between our past and present. Even when we grow up and understand what is behind our fears, they do not completely go away, and sometimes they develop, become our personal demons that haunt and torment us for the rest of our lives. And if we are all completely honest with ourselves, we will realize that some childhood fears have grown with us.
Video clip scandal
To create a video for the song Mein Herz Brennt , the musicians chose the famous photographer Eugenio Recuenco ( Eugenio Recuenco ). However, according to the group, the clip turned out to be not as dynamic as they imagined it to be. And without notifying the photographer, Rammstein started working with director Zoran Bihac , who had already filmed videos for the band (” Links 234″, “Mein Teil”, “Rosenrot” ).
But Eugenio Recuenko was extremely dissatisfied with the fact that part of his work was used for the clip. The situation was later resolved: the photographer was allowed to release his own video for the Rammstein song, it is also available on YouTube.
Mein Herz Brennt: What Are Rammstein’s Video About?
The meaning of the Mein Herz Brennt video is not so easy to understand, even if you try, and not just glance at it. All that distinguishes the eye are nightmarish images, dark blood, writhing bodies, the silent cries of the tortured and the figures of children.
That was the band’s intention: to leave a continuous stream of frightening images. It is difficult to focus on them, as each one is shown for about 3 seconds and is immediately replaced by a new one, even more creepy. If it were possible to consider and analyze these characters, then they would not be so frightening. But no – the incessant tape of nightmare makes up this clip.
One of the directors of the video (Eugenio Recuenko) was removed from work precisely because his creation lacked dynamism. He is still a photographer – his images are unusual and imbued with a special energy, but devoid of movement, drive and fire, which we love so much in Rammstein’s work. As a result of refining the clip by another director, we watch a video full of dynamics. And it is this feeling that remains after watching – the creators did not achieve at all that we analyze something, parse the plot into details, but were left with a painful feeling of an unstoppable and insurmountable nightmare, with which nothing can be done, which will definitely come – anyone knows that, who was a child.
The shooting location is more than unusual – an abandoned tuberculosis hospital, or, according to some sources, an insane asylum. Whatever it is, the energy of the building is dark and gloomy, the walls are saturated with real pain and the thoughts of those who were here – thoughts of death. There was simply no better place for the video.
In the clip, two shades can be distinguished – gray and red. Gray is peace and quiet, and against its background, the unfolding pictures of delirium and nightmares look even more eerie. Red – flaming pillars of fire, a bloody heart and an ominous light. The black one unites them, like a conductor from the darkness of Purgatory, where there is nothing, into the open mouth of Hell. At the same time, red is energy, development and life.
What is the video Rammstein – Mein Herz Brennt: a clue in the song
To understand what the Rammstein – Mein herz brennt video is about, you need to refer to the lyrics of the song. It tells about the supreme Nightmare with a burning heart, which becomes stronger from children’s tears delivered to him by infernal entities. These entities frighten children, and Nightmare – the “voice from the pillow” – will sing while his heart is on fire.
The images created for the song are very original: not stereotyped ideas that pass from clip to clip, as happens with other performers. Clip Mein Herz Brennt is perceived as a full-fledged feature film. Ideas are not easy to interpret, because the creators did not choose ready-made characters, but created something new, but we will still try to sort them out.
The essence of the clip Rammstein — Mein Herz Brennt in images
Children with painted bags on their heads. They are orphans, and the faces depicted on the fabric – the roles that society wants to impose on them – can be distinguished beauties and sad Pierrot. No one is interested in the inner world of the child, his face is hidden by a bag, because only parents could love him, but they are not. Society treats orphanage children with prejudice. It is impossible not to recall the image of a child with a bag on his head from the film “Shelter” by Guillermo del Toro – the same blood-chilling incessant horror occurred there.
No one’s children, frightened and disenfranchised, whom no one will save – this is all of us under the approaching night mosquito, which is what the song says.
Orphanage teacher. We see how she tries to defend herself against Till with a gun, but she fails and screams in horror because he grabs her and tries to kiss her. She is young and beautiful, but after a few frames we see her old, and the nightmare still torments her until she falls dead. What exactly frightened and tormented her so much? We can see the archetypal Man in Tilla confidently approaching the girl. Since she is caring for orphans, most likely she does not and cannot have a loved one, and images of passion torment her at the same time with desire and fear, like all her life, until her death – Eros and Thanatos are always together.
The hero of Till can be interpreted at the same time as a grown-up pupil of the orphanage, who came to avenge everything that she did with the children. For example, the scene where the girl is all tightly chained in belts, or the presence of children in a low cage is monstrous cruelty, as is the dipping of a bound person in ice water.
A girl on a gynecological chair, who is helped by doctors – members of the group. It is not clear whether this is childbirth or an operation, but, nevertheless, this fragment makes you cringe. The image is interpreted at first glance simply – Mother, Birth, the creation of a new life. But in the context of the clip, the image looks just as frightening as the rest. Why be born, if the world is so nightmarish, and life will pass, most likely, in an orphanage. The girl has an alternative appearance, she is a well-known freak model, but her unusual appearance in the clip is also intended to make the viewer understand that this is a different, nightmarish world.
A bald girl in a crinoline where children hide. The image follows from the previous one – the care of a mother in this infernal world is rather a limitation, and children are just as defenseless against any nightmare – they will not be protected by a crinoline frame resembling a cage.
The girl is a nightmare. She sits on the back of a sleeping person’s bed, and, waking up from one nightmare, he sees another – her frightening and aggressive face, she is all white and with a twisted back – she resembles a revived gargoyle. In this scene, the creators wanted to convey the continuity of the nightmare – he dreamed in childhood, he dreams now, and will be forever.
Crying Till is the personification of a nightmare, its hyperbole. His tears – perhaps from the horror of himself, the inevitability of evil and the torment of people.
Children dressed as hares – for some reason this cute image in the clip looks frightening and disturbing. About the viral video with a magic rabbit singing “etis, atis, animatis”, I think no one needs to be reminded. Perhaps children are frightening, because in a black-and-white photograph, the whites of the eyes stand out especially strongly against the background of gray skin. The horns of Satan can be seen in the carelessly made hare ears. Children through the image of the beast become closer to the infernal world. Fire devours their photograph, as time devours their lives.
Musicians in black blood playing the cellos. The only frame in the entire video that can be called beautiful is the smooth and long movements of the bows. Musicians in a room with candles and dark walls seem to be accompanying the unfolding diabolical mass.
The man in the tall black mask is the same nightmare. The children are afraid of him, they try to escape, but to no avail, he torments them with long black claws, looking with painted inhuman eyes. I recall scandals with orphanages, where children were tortured in satanic rituals, as they were defenseless orphans who would not be missed. This story is told in the thriller Sneak, a book not for the faint of heart, written by Sam Hayes. Here, the children are in a kind of cage, and horror is inevitable, it cannot be avoided.
Fire is the quintessence of fear itself, tormenting passion, living, devouring horror that brings death. But at the same time, he creates liberation – at the end, people get out of the burning shelter, as if from imprisonment, perhaps these are the same orphans who finally leave the house of their horror, cease to obey the nightmare.
Interestingly, the scene where Till walks against the backdrop of burning walls was filmed “for real”, and not created using computer graphics. So the atmosphere is very realistic: the house is a place of torment and torture, and the fire actually burned.
Eating a bloodied heart. Ripping the heart out of the chest, absorbing oneself, destruction in the most direct sense – self-hatred and at the same time rebirth, the desire to get rid of this burning heart. One of the most shocking scenes in the video.
Men leaving a burning house. Previously, we saw them as children locked in a barred recess where the Nightmare could touch and torment them. But they grew up and broke the bars, set fire to the house and went free.
В чем же смысл клипа Rammstein — Mein herz brennt? Итак, видео целиком основано на песне, все образы — из неё. Детские ночные кошмары — часть нашей жизни, от них не сможет спасти никто и ничто. Пугающие образы будут приходить неотвратимо и питаться нашей болью и страхом. Но и непрекращающемуся аду можно дать отпор. Сначала нам кажется, что Огонь, живая сила — на стороне Кошмара, но это не так — Страсть может победить страх.
