From Zeit · 2022 · Track 8
Angst
«Fear»
More from the album · Zeit
In context
Fear taught in childhood, carried into adulthood: the bogeyman used to scare children turned into politics.
- Fear
- Children's folklore
- Collective paranoia
- Origin
- From “Zeit” (2022). The video follows the lyric: the members keep putting up walls, installing cameras and arming themselves, in an escalation of paranoia.
- The German key
- It draws on the “schwarzer Mann” (black man), a figure from German folklore. According to Oxford professor Karen Leeder, it comes from an 18th-century children's game tied to folklore and to the history of the plague. It is the German equivalent of the bogeyman. Leeder also points to a reference to Goethe's “Erlkönig”, the same poem that underpins “Dalai Lama”.
- What the band has said
- The band has not named a specific reference.
- Live
- In the setlist since the 2022 tour.
Our reading
Leeder's reading connects the lyric to warnings about Covid and about “Fortress Europe”. The song names neither: it starts from the fear learned as a child and lets the listener recognise where they see it as an adult.
The archive's interpretation, not an official account.
Original (German)
Wenn die Kinder unerzogen
Translation
When the children misbehave
Verse cited for the purpose of analysis.
The “schwarzer Mann”
The song rests on a figure from German folklore: the schwarzer Mann, the black man used to frighten children. According to Professor Karen Leeder of Oxford, it has its roots in an eighteenth-century German playground game bound up with folklore and plague history.
It is the equivalent of the coco in Colombian households: the character invoked to threaten a child who will not obey. The song starts there, with fear taught in childhood, and carries it into adult life.
Leeder also notes a reference to Goethe’s “Erlkönig”, with the goblin as the incarnation of fear — the same poem underpinning “Dalai Lama”.
What it is actually about
Leeder’s reading connects the lyrics to warnings about COVID and about “Fortress Europe”. The video follows suit: the members progressively build walls, install cameras and arm themselves, in an escalation of paranoia.
So it is not a song about bogeymen. It is about what people do when they are afraid: close up, surveil, arm themselves. The monster used to frighten children ends up justifying the adult’s border.
Context
From the eighth album, Zeit (29 April 2022); released as a single on 26 August 2022.
Translation and notes by Rammstein Colombia, for the purpose of analysis. The full original lyrics belong to their authors.