From Liebe ist für alle da · 2009 · Track 8
Pussy
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More from the album · Liebe ist für alle da
In context
The band's first number one in Germany, after fourteen years and six albums. And it wasn't with any of the songs the world knows them for.
- Sex tourism
- National stereotype
- Provocation
- Origin
- Single released on 18 September 2009, from “Liebe ist für alle da”. It also topped the charts in Finland. Jonas Åkerlund's video premiered online on 16 September and contains explicit pornography, with unsimulated sex scenes; body doubles were used in some shots.
- The German key
- Sung in a mix of German and English, like “Amerika”. The character is a German tourist looking for sex abroad, and the switch of language marks who is speaking and to whom.
- What the band has said
- The band did not publicly qualify the content of the video or the lyrics.
- Live
- A regular since 2009, with the foam cannon as a recognizable stage device.
Our reading
It is the same type who would appear ten years later in “Ausländer”, and the two read better together: the band came back to the subject to treat it with more layers. The number-one fact is worth recording because it runs against intuition — it wasn't “Du hast”, or “Sonne”, or “Engel”.
The archive's interpretation, not an official account.
Original (German)
Too big, too small
Translation
Too big, too small
Verse cited for the purpose of analysis.
The first number one
After fourteen years, six records and tours across half the world, the first Rammstein single to reach number one in Germany was this one. It also topped the charts in Finland. It was released on 18 September 2009.
The fact is worth recording because it defies intuition: it was not “Du hast”, nor “Sonne”, nor “Engel” — the songs the world knows the band by — but this.
The song
It is sung in a mix of German and English, like “Amerika”, and the character is a German tourist looking for sex abroad. He is the same man who would turn up ten years later in “Ausländer”, and the two songs read better together: the band returned to the subject to handle it with more layers.
The video
Directed by Jonas Åkerlund and premiered online on 16 September 2009. It contains explicit pornography, including unsimulated sex; the members appear in various scenarios and body doubles were used in some shots.
Its content meant it could not be broadcast on television or hosted on the usual video platforms, so it was published on an adult site. It is an uncommon case of a music video that chooses to sit outside every distribution channel the industry has — and even so, or precisely because of it, the song went to number one.
Together with “Ich tu dir weh” from the same record, it forms the pair of songs that made Liebe ist für alle da the band’s most debated album in Germany.
Translation and notes by Rammstein Colombia, for the purpose of analysis. The full original lyrics belong to their authors.