Une série de tubes

Why in French since this post is about Germany? Flaunting my Eurotrash cred? Not quite.

‘Tube’ is French argot for a hit record. Now in all my years in the media I’ve only had one of those, as writer of the lyrics for the songs on a single which went to number three in the hit parade.

In Germany. With a band we called ‘Just Friends’ (after my favourite Chet Baker track). When I come to think of it, that was another of my ‘transmedial’ initiatives. The four kids were introduced one by one into the story line of Germany’s most popular soap opera of the time. Within the fictional narrative the four met and, in Judy Garland /Mickey Rooney style, said in effect: “I know, let’s put on a show”.

So the band was in its first iteration merely fictitious (now we’d say virtual) but the record release was real, the chart position, too, and the lovely royalties I earned for less than an hour of rhyming!

Why do I post this reminiscence of ten years ago? Because across the chasm of a decade the ‘series of tubes’ delivered to me yesterday not one but two ‘internets’.

One was from the friend who wrote the song with which ‘Just Friends’ enjoyed their brief success. Lutz Fahrenkrog-Petersen is now head of the Forschungszentrum Populäre Musik (Research Centre for Popular Music) der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

The other email was from the photographer who took the photo which was the cover illustration of the ‘Just Friends’ CD, Tom Wagner (www.tomwagner.de) who was then just starting on what has developed as a brilliant career.

I haven’t been in touch with either Lutz or Tom, both based in Berlin, on a regular basis for years. An enjoyable coincidence, of course.

But made even more poignant by the fact that Lutz’ brother has just produced a song featuring two girls, ‘Milk and Honey’. When you realize that they’re singing in French and in… Arabic, you’ll understand that I am entitled to ponder a while on the workings of fate.

I do hope that for the girls ‘Habibi, je t’aime’ is just the first of, well, une série de tubes.