#mani matter

[leontinrau]

Mani Matter - Us emene lääre Gygechaschte (english translation)

Out of an empty violin case He pulls his music instrument And the case disappears

And he plays without bow A song without words And he wears a top hat But underneath no head And no neck and no body Neither arms nor legs All of that he has lost in the war

And so remains still his song Only that is still there Because a top hat He never had either

A song about the nihilism of war and the power of poetry.

Mani Matter (1936 - 1972), a swiss german singer/songwriter

[thewalrusispaul]

Found this in a swiss school book for music in primary school (I‘m a teacher in switzerland) and look who I found. This page is about musicians who‘s music is immortal. And in between Beethoven and Mozart is Johnny 😁😊 This basically gives me the freedom to talk about the Beatles endlessly in school.

(the fourth one is a swiss artist if any of you care)

[useless-switzerlandfacts]

Mani Matter

Mani Matter is a true legend in Swiss German music. Despite his career being abruptly ended by a car crash in 1972, is absurd and comical lyrics, combined with folk inspired guitar chords, are still known to everyone in the German speaking part of Switzerland and beyond. “I han es Zündhölzli azündt” is probably one of his most famous songs, along with “Hemmige”. Sadly, most of his songs aren’t available on youtube as originals, but there are more than enough covers, both from other famous Swiss musicians (such as Stephan Eicher and Noti Wümié), but also from less known people from all over the world. To honour Mani Matter on his 80th Birthday in 2016, a street near the city hall of Bern was named after him. In the same year, a tribute album featuring his most famous songs newly interpreted by contemporary Swiss musicians was released.

To illustrate the absurdity of his texts without understanding Swiss german, here is also a small animation video made by students from the Hochschule Luzern.

[queer-grey-lady]

De Ferdinand isch gstorbe, oh je oh je oh je

[leontinrau]

"... mänge - we ds Läbe ihm weh tuet - bsinnt sich drdür wieder dra ..."

Mani Matter - Warum syt dir so truurig?

Übersetzung: "... mancher - wenn das Leben ihm weh tut - besinnt sich dadurch wieder daran ..."

[neobase]

[useless-switzerlandfacts]

The Czech musician Jan Řepka loves Mani Matter so much that he translated about 20 of his songs from Bernese Swiss German into Czech and sings the songs in both languages