(A little real-life report from a lyricist’s desk)

Writing Schlager lyrics is like walking a tightrope: you have to hit the heart instantly, but please not with the same arrow that’s been flying around for decades. The audience wants to recognize themselves, wants to sing along right away, yet at the same time they want to feel a tiny bit newly in love. That’s exactly what makes it so exciting.

The biggest danger lurks in the famous “word box” everyone knows by heart: heart – pain – longing – dreams – forever – eternity – ocean – starry sky – roses – tears – lonely – a thousand years – heaven and hell – kisses in the rain… These words aren’t bad. They’re just tired. They’ve done their duty with Roy Black, Helene Fischer, and three generations in between. When they pop up again, the ear automatically thinks: “Oh, I already know this song.”

The trick is not to suddenly turn Schlager intellectual or “different.” The trick is to tell the exact same huge feelings with fresh images and honest everyday language, while still making it sing like a dream.

A few examples?

Instead of “My heart is burning with love” → “Your laugh burns itself into me like summer on my skin”

Instead of “I’ll love you forever and ever” → “I’ll still love you when the last vinyl record quietly crackles”

Instead of “You are my starry sky” → “You’re the light that stays when all the lights go out”

The emotion is 100 % identical. But suddenly it sounds as if the lyric was written today, for this one specific person. And that’s precisely what the Schlager heart truly craves: to feel personally spoken to.

The real challenge usually comes afterward, when the finished lyric is lying on the table and the composer or producer frowns: “Cool, but… can people actually sing that? It doesn’t feel ‘Schlager enough’ anymore. It’s too special. Too risky.” That’s when you take a deep breath, order the third cup of coffee, and calmly explain: “The audience is ready. They’ve been hearing the same vocabulary for years. If we give them something now that touches them just as deeply but sounds fresh, they won’t just sing along, they’ll tell everyone about it.”

Sometimes it takes patience, sometimes a bit of stubbornness, and almost always the quiet promise: “Trust me, they’ll sing it even louder because it finally feels real again.”

Good Schlager doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel. It just has to roll a little more colorfully than all the others.

And when, at the first live show, 10,000 people belt out the new line word-perfect, the line that was “too daring” a year ago, then you know: it was worth dancing on that tightrope.

So here’s to staying brave, dear composers, producers, and singers. And we lyricists will keep trying to surprise you with a few new colors. ♡

– Evelin (who sometimes needs three cups of coffee but never gives up)