From Rosenrot · 2005 · Track 1
Benzin
«Petrol»
More from the album · Rosenrot
In context
The character isn't asking for petrol for a car: he asks for it the way one asks for a substance. Leaving out what it's for is what turns the song into something else.
- Dependence
- Loanword
- Fuel
- Origin
- From “Rosenrot” (2005).
- The German key
- “Benzin” is the ordinary German word for petrol. But the song also uses “Gasolin”, a rare word in today's German: the Duden lists it, built on the English “gas” and the Latin “oleum”, and it sounds like a half-finished borrowing. It is the same device as in “Amerika”, where English sneaks into German through the chorus — except that here the borrowing doesn't criticize Americanization; it leaves a word halfway between two languages for a fuel that doesn't belong to anyone either.
- What the band has said
- The band has not specified what the character uses it for.
- Live
- A regular since 2005, with pyrotechnics on stage.
Our reading
That omission is deliberate and it is the whole point: a song about fuel turned into a song about dependence.
The archive's interpretation, not an official account.
Original (German)
Ich brauche Benzin
Translation
I need petrol
Verse cited for the purpose of analysis.
The word that does not exist
Benzin is the ordinary German word for petrol. But the song also uses “Gasolin”, a rare word in today’s German: the Duden lists it, built from English gas and Latin oleum, and it sounds like a borrowing from English gasoline.
It is the same device as “Amerika”, where English pushes into German through the chorus. Here the loanword is not there to criticize Americanization but to do something else: a word halfway between two languages, for a fuel that belongs to nobody either.
The song
The character is not asking for petrol for a car. He asks for it the way you ask for a substance: he needs it, nothing else will do, and he does not explain what for. The band leaves the purpose unspecified, and that omission is what turns a song about fuel into a song about dependency.
The video
Rammstein are firefighters. They head out to an emergency in an enormous fire engine, three lanes wide, and drive on paying no attention to the damage they cause or the people they kill along the way. Paul Landers fantasizes about rescuing someone from a burning building. At the end they arrive at a suicide attempt and the safety trampoline fails.
It is black comedy about rescue as catastrophe: the ones who come to put out the fire do more harm than the fire. Coming from a band whose show consists literally of setting things alight, it has its own irony.
Context
From Rosenrot; single released 7 October 2005.
Translation and notes by Rammstein Colombia, for the purpose of analysis. The full original lyrics belong to their authors.