From Mutter · 2001 · Track 1
Mein Herz brennt
«My heart burns»
More from the album · Mutter
In context
It takes the opening formula of the “Sandmännchen” —the programme West German children went to bed with— and changes what comes next. The figure who arrives at night no longer brings a story: the narrator is not the one suffering the nightmare, he is the one who produces it.
- Childhood
- Nightmare
- GDR
- Origin
- It opens “Mutter” (2 April 2001) and also opened the concerts of that era. Its working title, registered in the GEMA database, was simply “Sandmann”.
- The German key
- The first line is not Rammstein's: it reproduces the introduction to the West German “Sandmännchen”, which a German listener recognises instantly. That prior familiarity is the song's raw material — without it, all that is left is a horror lyric; with it, the tenderest object of a country's collective childhood shows what it already had inside.
- Live
- For eleven years it had no video: it was the only track on “Made in Germany 1995–2011” that had never been a single or had a clip, and that was the reason for the December 2012 single. Two videos were made, both shot in the abandoned Beelitz-Heilstätten sanatorium. It remains one of the songs the band has played live most often.
Our reading
It is one of the most recognisable decisions on the album: instead of inventing a monster, the band borrows one from shared memory. The procedure is identical to that of “Spieluhr” and “Engel” in the same catalogue — the repertoire of German childhood handed back with the cruelty it already carried.
The archive's interpretation, not an official account.
Original (German)
Nun, liebe Kinder, gebt fein Acht Ich bin die Stimme aus dem Kissen
Translation
Now, dear children, pay attention I am the voice from the pillow
Verse cited for the purpose of analysis.
The sandman
The opening line is not Rammstein’s. “Nun, liebe Kinder, gebt fein Acht / Ich habe euch etwas mitgebracht” — “now, dear children, pay attention, I have brought you something” — is the opening of Sandmännchen, the television programme West German children went to bed with (East Germany had its own version). In the original, the figure who arrives at night brings a story and sand for sleeping.
Here he brings something else. The band keeps the formula exactly and changes what follows: the voice admits that what it brought was torn out of its own chest, and that with that heart it has the power to force eyelids shut. The song’s working title, registered in the GEMA database, was simply “Sandmann”.
What comes at night
The rest is a description of the nightmare from inside it: demons, ghosts and black fairies crawling out of the cellar and looking under the bedclothes, waiting for the moon to wake so they can steal the children’s hot tears. The narrator is not the one having the nightmare — he is the one producing it, and he says so while singing until daybreak.
It is one of the most recognisable decisions on Mutter: instead of inventing a monster, take the tenderest object in a country’s collective childhood and show what was already inside it.
The two videos
For eleven years the song had no video. It was the only track on the compilation Made in Germany 1995–2011 that had never been a single or had a clip, and that was precisely the reason for the December 2012 single, which also promoted the Videos 1995–2012 collection.
Two videos were made, both shot in the main bathroom of the abandoned Beelitz-Heilstätten sanatorium. The piano version premiered on 7 December 2012, directed by Zoran Bihać — the same director as “Links 2-3-4” and “Mein Teil” — and shows only Till Lindemann, in a black dress and black-and-white face paint, in front of a T-shaped pool. The original version came out on 14 December: the Sandman is played by model Melanie Gaydos, who appears to a sleeping Richard Kruspe and triggers his nightmare, while Till terrorises children in an orphanage.
That second video had two shoots. The first, in December 2011, was directed by Spanish photographer Eugenio Recuenco, who shot the cover of Liebe ist für alle da; the band was unhappy with the result and returned to the same location in June 2012 with Bihać for additional scenes. The final video mixes both sessions.
Context
It opens Mutter (2 April 2001) and also opened the concerts of that era. It remains one of the band’s most-played songs live.
Translation and notes by Rammstein Colombia, for the purpose of analysis. The full original lyrics belong to their authors.