Out of This World and Home for Dinner

Listening Post 134. As consistently as she releases sparkling albums, Claudia Koreck reaches new heights. Her 2007 debut ignited a revival of Bavarian-dialect song, a movement that now counts her as its Grande Dame. In short order one of her compositions became a major film title track and she toured Germany with the Eagles. Her success rests less on strategic choices than in simply not letting herself be forced into either/or boxes—she’s a small town girl and a cosmopolitan woman from Munich and a barefoot-globe trotting singer-songwriter threading folk, blues, rock and pop through her expressive voice and guitar. While other European artists cross over to English and ditch native languages, Koreck wrote nine songs for Holodeck, providing separate English and Bavarian-German tracks for each. The album is named after the Star Trek virtual reality chamber that allows astronauts to experience diverse worlds and is inspired by global and personal concerns—growing xenophobia and a double-booked life, both demanding a safe space where an artist or astronaut can float dreamily and nurture hope without drifting too far from family and civic engagement. The collection, recorded mostly in Los Angeles (the real, not virtual, L.A.), has a distinct American flavor, with occasional country touches. It opens with Hallabrooklyn, a bluesy leap from Koreck’s home town of Hallabruck to New York, but the true escape is the jaunty California, where “I’m gonna leave my grief behind… and let the sunshine in.” Defining images appear in Paper Aeroplane—“I’m not flying anywhere/The wind decides/Where I’m turning to” (video 1); in Neuer Mensch (I’m Over It), about a last fling (video 2); and in Wall (Wand), where she reveals, “I want to change, but remain who I am/Find my peace and be free/That’s my aim” (video 3). In her career arc, Koreck has a flawless sense of direction—each album takes her farther than ever and still brings her home. (Honu Lani Records)

Note: The Making of Holodeck (video 4) includes brief excerpts from several album tracks, including California, Paper Aeroplane, I’m Over It (Neuer Mensch), I Got Hope, Another Beautiful Day (Himmel so nah) and Wall (Wand).

Related Post: Claudia Koreck: Stadt-Land-Fluss, Listening Post 51, June 13, 2016.

Claudia Koreck: Stadt Land Fluss

Paper Aeroplane: Hey paper aeroplane
/I wanna see the world like you
Hey paper aeroplane
/Fade into the blue

I’m not flying anywhere/The wind decides

Where I’m turning to

I don’t feel no pain at all/What bothers me

Gets swallowed by the moon

Neuer Mensch/I’m Over It
I open up my door
/Before you had a chance to ring I feel it all before
This way it’s always been
You take off your shoes, 
as if you’re here to stay
Your presence – so intense 
I miss you, more than I can say

You light up a cigarette and smile as if you’ve won
Though I don’t think that’s sexy, it really turns me on
You still are – oh – so reckless it makes me want you more
You take off your clothes 
and then we do it on the floor

I kept on hoping/
kept dreaming, longing, aching and I never stopped to wait
I kept on leaving
/My door a little open
/Though I know it’s kinda late
And after all those lonely years, 
you’re coming through my door
Thinking it will all go back to how it was before


I’m over it/
You know I’m over it
You know I’m over it/
We’re over it now
Lying naked on the floor/Shows off what we are
You act like always/
But you can’t feel my heart

I never could resist you/
And I sure could not today
But going back to how it was/You know there is no way
I took so many chances/I often was so scared
Until one day I realized/You never really cared

You’re still attracting me/
But that is what YOU see
Cause I don’t need a hot shot, babe/I need a real man next to me

Wand/Wall
Oh, I’m facing a wall and I cannot go on
/It makes me feel so small, so alone and withdrawn
With my back on the sea and the tide coming in/There is nowhere to turn, there is no way to win

Oh this wall is my life, and I raise my eyes
/In the past I would have used my wings to fly
But now I have grown roots to feel safe and sound
/No more chasing the clouds, I am bound to the ground

Oh, who can help me I want to know
/Where I come from, where I should go
Life is a journey, it’s a test and it’s a riddle/And I am on my way, somewhere in the middle

And when I close my eyes, I can see so much more/Deep down inside there’s a permanent war
I know I want to change, but remain who I am/Finding my peace and be free that’s my aim

Life, you keep changing, you twist and turn/Lessons over lessons that we must learn
You can give us so much, or just take it away/Yes you hold the truth that we search every day

Oh, who can help me, I want to know/
Where I come from, where I should go
Life is a journey, it’s a test and it’s a riddle/And I am on my way, somewhere in the middle

The tide pushes me onto the wall/
Now my head is underwater
Feathers floating around and I just cannot recall/Who am I

California: I’m going to California
/I’m gonna leave my grief behind

I’m gonna join the place where the sunshine reigns through the night

I’m gonna put all my broken pieces
/Into bottles of delicate fun

I’m gonna be a cruising queen in a convertible

Just open the world in my head

And let the sunshine in, let the sunshine in
The waves make a beautiful bed

And I lay down within

And let the sunshine in

See I don’t wanna be too far

From California