From Liebe ist für alle da · 2009 · Track 4
Haifisch
«Shark»
More from the album · Liebe ist für alle da
In context
Quoting the most covered German song of the twentieth century and changing one word. Where Brecht showed the predator with teeth, Rammstein shows the predator that cries.
- Literary quotation
- The band on itself
- Humour
- Origin
- From “Liebe ist für alle da” (2009). The video, shot at Marquardt Castle and released a month before the single, is Till Lindemann's fictional funeral: each member fantasizes about a different cause of death, and each one refers back to an earlier Rammstein video.
- The German key
- “Die Moritat von Mackie Messer” (Brecht and Weill, 1928) opens with “Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne” — “and the shark, it has teeth”. Rammstein swaps “Zähne” for “Tränen” (tears), which sound alike: the listener recognizes the line and receives something else. It is the same method as “Rosenrot”, applied to the repertoire of political theatre.
- What the band has said
- The band put it this way on its own website: the shark “doesn't just have teeth, it has tears too”. It did not confirm the autobiographical reading.
- Live
- One of the most played songs from the album, some 180 times, and one of the few in the catalogue with explicit humour.
Our reading
It reads as a portrait of the group: six people holding together even when things are ugly inside, after fifteen years. The band didn't state that reading, so it remains an interpretation.
The archive's interpretation, not an official account.
Original (German)
Und der Haifisch, der hat Tränen
Translation
And the shark, he has tears
Verse cited for the purpose of analysis.
Teeth or tears
“Die Moritat von Mackie Messer” — known in English as “Mack the Knife” — was written by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill for The Threepenny Opera (1928). It is probably the most covered German song of the twentieth century, and it opens like this:
Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne — “And the shark, he has teeth”
Rammstein changes the last word: Zähne (teeth) becomes Tränen (tears). The two sound close in German, so the listener hears Brecht’s line and receives something else. Where Brecht introduced the predator baring his teeth, Rammstein introduces the predator weeping — the band put it on their own site as the shark “not only has teeth, he’s got tears as well”.
It is the same move as “Rosenrot”, applied to the repertoire of political theatre: quote a German classic everyone recognizes, then bend one syllable.
Context and interpretation
The song works as a portrait of the group: six people holding together even when things are ugly inside. The common reading is that it is about the band itself after fifteen years, tensions included — but the band has not stated that reading, so it stays an interpretation.
The video
Shot at Schloss Marquardt near Potsdam and released on 23 April 2010, a month ahead of the single. It is Till Lindemann’s fictional funeral. Each member daydreams a different cause of death in flashback, and each one references an earlier Rammstein video. The ending reveals that Till faked it: he turns up alive in Hawaii with a tiger shark.
It is one of the few Rammstein videos with explicit humour, and among the most self-referential in the discography — it doubles as a catalogue of their own visual work.
Translation and notes by Rammstein Colombia, for the purpose of analysis. The full original lyrics belong to their authors.