Lost Highway, a borrowed DVD, and the German he understood without knowing it

Rammstein marked me before I even knew they were a musical option. At ten I discovered them through David Lynch’s Lost Highway: the way that director used music to drive the drama made me wonder how films were made, and why that sound shook me so much. I had no internet, so I dug through my siblings’ DVDs until I found a gem: Lichtspielhaus, the DVD the band released in 2003. Clicking through the menu, purely by chance, I landed on the video for “Ich Will” — not “Du Hast,” not “Engel,” not “Feuer Frei!,” but that one.

I didn’t know their language was formal German, but I understood everything that song was saying anyway, through the weight of symbolism and drama that defines their music. That’s where I first truly met what would end up shaping me as a person: metal, rock, and film, united by the one thing that gives stories meaning.

Over the years I understood why Rammstein unsettles so many people: lyrics that don’t apologize, provocative performances, an unflattering mirror held up to the world. It’s an art that only those who recognize the raw truths of their own history really value — and I, starting from that borrowed DVD, ended up being one of them.