Very nice music and art! But why are most German songs dark and twisted?
This was a commission. The music is by Anarchonauten and free to use. I made the animation. Originally aired in august 2015 on youtube.
_____________________________________________
Lyrics (original)
Egal wo du auch hinschaust
Du hast alles schon gesehn
Du hast keinen Bock zu leben
Doch du hast auch Angst zu gehen
So hängst du zwischen den Welten
weder lebendig noch tot
Nur noch eine leere Hülle
Die sich aufzulösen droht
Du siehst am Horizont die Lichter
Der Menschen, die beisammen sind
und bleibst doch lieber hier im Dunkeln
Denn das Licht macht dich nur blind
Du hast dich selbst ins Exil geschickt
Der Welt völlig entrückt
Und von dort ist noch niemand je
die Rückkehr geglückt
Der Abstand macht die Hoffnung klein
Und lässt selbst Freunde Fremde sein
Die Distanz hat dein Leben komplett ruiniert
Und doch bist du noch immer von ihr fasziniert
Abstand – Zu dir selbst
Abstand – zu deinem Umfeld
Abstand – zu den Lügen der Welt
Abstand – macht dich zum tragischen Held
Der Abstand
Abstand zu dir selbst
Und so gehst du wie immer
Allein durch die Nacht
Als auf einmal in dir
Eine Stimme erwacht
Die dir sagt, dass du garnicht
Wie die andern sein willst
Und es gut ist dass du
Diese Einsamkeit fühlst
Das kann dir keiner nehmen,
Diese Nacht gehört dir
In sie bist du verliebt
Wie ein alter Vampir
Keiner hier der dich nervt,
niemand der dich frustriert
Alles ist so weit weg
Und du lächelst verwirrt
Der Abstand macht die Sorgen klein
Und lässt selbst Riesen Zwerge sein
Die Distanz hat dein Selbstwertgefühl optimiert
Und da ist nichts mehr, was dich jemals schockiert
Abstand – Zu dir selbst
Abstand – zu deinem Umfeld
Abstand – zu den Lügen der Welt
Abstand – macht dich zum tragischen Held
Der Abstand
Abstand zu dir selbst
Vielleicht bist du ganz allein
Vielleicht bist du bald tot
Vielleicht ist deine Art
Vom Aussterben bedroht
Doch ganz gleich, was noch kommt
Du kannst nie mehr so tief fallen
Wie die andern, die sich
An Vergängliches krallen
Du bist ein Desperado
Mut ist dein Privileg
Während andre noch zögern
Gehst du längst deinen Weg
Und auch wenn dein Leben
oft sinnlos aussieht
Insgeheim bist du stolz drauf
Und singst dieses Lied
Der Abstand wäscht die Seele rein
Und lässt dich ohne Reue sein
Die Distanz hat dein Wesen umprogrammiert
Es ist nicht immer schön, aber es funktioniert
Abstand – Zu dir selbst
Abstand – zu deinem Umfeld
Abstand – zu den Lügen der Welt
Abstand – macht dich zum tragischen Held
Der Abstand
Abstand zu dir selbst
__________________________________________
Lyrics (translated by me without warranty)
No matter where you look
You have already seen everything
You don´t want to live
But you also fear to leave
Thus you hang between the worlds
Neither alive, nor dead
Only an empty shell
impending to dissolve
At the horizon you see the lights
Of the people, who are together
But you rather stay here in the dark
Since the light only makes you blind
You sent yourself into exile
Disconnected from the world
And from there, no one
succeded to come back
The distance makes hope look small
And lets even friends be strangers
The distance completely ruined your life
And still you are fascinated by it
Distance - to yourself
Distance - to your environment
Distance - to the lies of the world
Distance - makes you a tragic hero
The distance
Distance to yourself
And so you walk like always
alone through the night
When suddenly inside you
A voice awakes
Which tells you, that you
don´t want to be like the others
And it´s good that you
feel this loneliness
No one can take this from you
This night belongs to you
You are in love with it
Like an old vampire
No one here to annoy you
No one to frustrate you
Everything is far away
And you smile confusedly
The distance makes sorrows look small
And lets even giants be dwarves
The distance optimized your self esteem
And there is nothing left, to ever shock you
Distance - to yourself
Distance - to your environment
Distance - to the lies of the world
Distance - makes you a tragic hero
The distance
Distance to yourself
Maybe you are alone
Maybe you are dead soon
Maybe your kind is
Impending to go extinct
But no matter, what may come
You can never fall again that deeply
Like the others, who
Cling to evanescent things
You are a desperado
Courage is your privilege
While others still hesitate
You already walk your way
And although your life
often seems pointless
Secretly you are proud
And sing this song
The distance cleanses your soul
And lets you be without remorse
The distance reprogrammed your nature
It isn´t always pleasant, but it works
Distance - to yourself
Distance - to your environment
Distance - to the lies of the world
Distance - makes you a tragic hero
The distance
Distance to yourself
Very nice music and art! But why are most German songs dark and twisted?
Thanks! There are lots of straight, happy songs, but I guess they don´t get exported as much.
Yeah you so deserved Front Page recognition!!
Thank you!
So, one of my favorite things to do as kid was go to museums.
Science, Art, History, anything, because it felt like such a more tangible way to learn about things the school did.
This animation reminded me of one of my favorite books as a kid;
"From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler"
it's an odd one, and it features children running away to live in a museum.
It's set in a time before security cameras where common, and they just memorized the guards schedule, and scavenged change from the fountain.
It's certainly an odd, but still almost realistic story, and your animation reminded me of that, but also the odd sense of realizing one's own history, and the role you and your ancestors played in doing fairly odd and horrible things by current standards.
Your consistent use of a darker color pallet was impressive, especially with how you choose to highlight and transition from different kinds of art and history and science.
Also I feel you where able to match the context the lyrics quite nicely with a very abstract song.
Thank you for making this, and sharing it.
The animation is good, the voice acting on the bridge guy is great (~90s cartoonish) and the chorus is catchy. However, the lengthy lyrical parts are hard to listen to, especially when knowing German. The content and the execution of the lyrics make it sound like the first-try demo tape of a 15 year old dark metal fanboy. Casting pearls before swine.
Of course, here and there the animation is clunky, too. But this only sticks out since the graphical styles evoke a certain expectation to it, similar to that of Elfenlied and Blasphemous.
If you were to change a thing, please let it be the major lyrical part. Rhyming schemes, melody and autotune definitely destroy the potential that your animation makes up (and I feel sorry for that).
Best
Thanks for the feedback. For suggestions concerning the music, please contact Anarchonauten, but I doubt, they will response. As far as I know, they are psychically wrecked and split up. I´m only responsible for agreeing to make the animation for the finished song and thereby proving, that I have no clue, bad taste or don´t care XD.
Cool piece, I like how the main character moves like a marionette in a way, it meshes well with the surreal art style. Only critique I have is that it's a bit hard to tell what's going on with the rougher drawings against the backgrounds, but aside from that it was a great watch, nice work!