While on vacation in Berlin, Carrie and I were floating down the Spree river in a boat. Carrie was taking lots of pictures as scenic mementos of our trip and happened to catch some graffiti on a wall with the minimilast side of a building above it and a tree decorated in its autumn leaves.
Upon returning from our trip as I was looking through her photos I saw this one and said, "This will be the cover of my next album!" I had no album in the works but this idea convinced me that maybe I should start one. The composition of the image just resonated with me. I have no idea what the tagger originally meant with this mixed German/English phrase but it too, seemed to reveal several meanings for me as I thought about it.
It has been sad the last few years not to be able to meander around the world like we used to, and it seems lately travel seems to be getting less attractive, not just because of new viral risks, but for a variety of new reasons from the meterological to the political. Sometimes it feels like humanity has reentered a dark age we thought we'd transcended centuries ago. I hope during my lifetime again to feel as comfortable being a global citizen as I did just a few long, long years ago.
I wrote the lyrics of Du Bist Kein Toy before virus lockdowns, nihilism as a political ethos, and pop bigotry. Listening to the album while doing the final edits amidst this entropic backdrop of a post-sane society, I can see how easily some of my words can be interpreted as contemporary sentiment. I suppose the warning signs were already there that we were in a hell of a lot more trouble than we thought.
-V