From Zeit · 2022 · Track 9
Dicke Titten
«Big tits»
More from the album · Zeit
In context
A man who has been alone for years lowers the bar verse by verse until he's left with a single requirement. The butt of the joke isn't her.
- Loneliness
- Self-parody
- Village brass band music
- Origin
- From “Zeit” (2022). The brass is played by musicians from the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden — one of the oldest orchestras in the world — set to playing beer-festival music. There is also an official version recorded with LaBrassBanda, the Bavarian brass band.
- The German key
- The chorus is deliberately crude, but the second verse cracks it open: it describes loneliness as “an ever-open wound from which the blood of the soul drips”, says his only comfort is little dogs, and repeats that he isn't demanding. The crudeness is the symptom, not the ideal.
- What the band has said
- The band has not explained the song; the village-band arrangement signals the comic register on its own.
- Live
- There is no record of it being played live.
Our reading
That is the difference from ordinary vulgarity: the butt of the joke is not the woman being described, it's the man describing her. He is a pathetic man and the song knows it.
The archive's interpretation, not an official account.
Original (German)
Sie muss nicht schön sein Sie muss nicht klug sein
Translation
She does not have to be beautiful she does not have to be clever
Verse cited for the purpose of analysis.
A list of requirements
The lyric is the monologue of a man who has been alone for years: life dulled, days grey, losing his patience, his mind and his hair. He would like a woman, and he has given up hope of finding a partner who is his equal.
So he lowers the bar, line by line. She does not have to be beautiful. She does not have to be clever. She does not have to be rich. She need not be a model with long strides. Just one thing, and that thing gives the song its title.
The second verse is where the joke cracks: he describes his loneliness as a permanently open wound with blood dripping from the soul, says his only comfort is small dogs, and repeats that he is not demanding, that he is not fussy. He is a pathetic man and the song knows it; the crudeness of the chorus is the symptom, not the ideal.
That is the difference between this song and plain vulgarity: the target of the mockery is not the woman being described, it is the man describing her.
Village brass
Musically, “Dicke Titten” is a brass band march grafted onto the band’s sound. The horns on the record and over the closing credits are played by musicians from the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden — clarinets, trumpets, tenor horns and tuba — one of the oldest orchestras in the world put to work on beer-tent music. There is also an official version recorded with LaBrassBanda, the Bavarian brass outfit.
The video
It was directed by Joern Heitmann and premiered on 25 May 2022, two days after the band announced it on social media. It was shot in Ellmau, in the Wilder Kaiser massif in Austrian Tyrol.
The band appears in an Alpine village inhabited mostly by women with large breasts. Everyone wears lederhosen except Till, who plays a blind old man — a nod to the lyrics — while Richard Kruspe plays a tailor who secretly cross-dresses in a basement. The rest is double-entendre humour at comedy pace: puppies held, cows milked, butter churned. The end credits roll over a piece played entirely on horns.
In Germany the video leaked ahead of schedule: in early May a website cited a Mexican fan page and published a photo of the six musicians in traditional costume alongside six women in dirndl, while the band had still announced nothing.
Context
Ninth track on Zeit (29 April 2022), recorded in 2020 at Studio La Fabrique in France. It was released as the album’s third single on 27 May 2022, with physical 7-inch vinyl and CD editions on 8 July. It is the comic counterpart of “Zick Zack” on the same record: two songs about bodies that fail to meet what is demanded of them.
Translation and notes by Rammstein Colombia, for the purpose of analysis. The full original lyrics belong to their authors.