Having lived in Germany for most of the summer, I’ve had the opportunity to listen to some German music, specifically German indie rock and rap. In the former category, the band Fotos has been a constant companion. Their milieu is more-or-less what one would expect of a 2010s indie rock group with songs about love, loss, fear, and joy. One song of theirs, however, combines all of these emotions, and has, for me, been a consistent aide in reflection, specifically on Good Friday of this year.
That song is “Kalifornien” or “California,” which I have translated below (a faster, but less pensive version also exists, called “Nach Dem Goldrausch,” meaning “After the Gold Rush”). Superficially, the speaker clarifies that he will always be there, in the same place, even after a period of immense fuss, like a gold rush. Despite the changes of the world, he remains unmoved, and not in a positive way. More vividly, however, I think it addresses the ease with which our generation falls into apathy, and in this way can serve as a reminder of how it is the duty of Christians to keep hope alive.
The song opens with a subjective stasis, an absolute inability to move or otherwise create momentum. In short, “something never happens here.” Similarly, the speaker knows he knows nothing, numbed to the world in a “bed of ice.” He is simply nobody, a “Thomas,” not a remarkable somebody like the German author Thomas Mann. While the lead singer of the band’s name is actually Thomas, the address also might suggest doubting Thomas to me, a man paralyzed by his own disbelief, apathetically removed from the world of faith.
Outside of personhood, the scenes painted are equally stifling. Wet cities, the sameness of people in a shop, and blindingly bright lights. Even the motion of cars is “too fast,” leaving the city, the people, and the speaker behind, stuck. In our modern world (and especially our modern urban environments) it is too easy to feel lost, disconnected, and left behind; as a result, the voice feels apathetic, abandoned, always in the same place where he was, where he began. The song reflects this feeling, fading out slowly from static into silence.
Though depressing, the song is a meditation on the temptation to diffidence, on our own world and time, especially for people in my own age group, easily lost in the simultaneously big-small world of the 21st century. There is value in reflecting on even this darkness because, for us Christians, there is a gold rush in the presence of Christ, in the Eucharist, in all the Sacraments. Physically, we remain unmoved by these powers, but emotionally and spiritually they are the antidote to the very apathy the song describes.
“After the gold rush” we remain in the same position physically, but are transformed spiritually, giving hope for the transformation of the world around us, from a wet city and fast cars into something more wholesome and connected. Hence, why I found the song so beautiful and timely on Good Friday, and why, I think that we, as Catholics, can find much cause for reflection in the long Holy Saturday that is life. We await the Second Coming with the knowledge of both Christ’s death and Resurrection, tempted to doubt, but offered the gift of faith. Caught in a time of uncertainty and difficulty it is up to us not to simply give in to despair, but to reflect, to believe, and to transform that despair into something pensive, yet hopeful. We wait in a certain sort of stasis, but we must wait joyfully.
I have tried to be somewhat poetic in translating the poem without sacrificing accuracy:
What a cramp, how distressed I am.
I never arrive; I go nowhere.
I could be together with someone.
I go out; I go in.
I will go into the shop again,
Where all people look the same.
The city lies there, wet from rain.
Something never happens here.
After the gold rush, I’ll be there.
After the gold rush,
After the gold rush,
I’ll be there.
I go to sleep in my bed of ice,
Knowing I know nothing,
Knowing I can do nothing.
I am a Thomas, not a Thomas Mann.
After the gold rush, I’ll be there
Where I was before the gold rush.
After the gold rush,
After the gold rush,
After the gold rush, I’ll be there
Where I was before the gold rush.
After the gold rush,
After the gold rush…
The city lies there, wet from rain.
Something never happens here.
Lanterns light the street bright;
A couple cars drive too fast.
After the gold rush,
After the gold rush,
After the gold rush,
After the gold rush,
After the gold rush,
After the gold rush,
After the gold rush, I’ll be there
Where I was before the gold rush.
After the gold rush,
After the gold rush,
After the gold rush, I’ll be there
Where I was before the gold rush.
After the gold rush,
After the gold rush…
Now, listen to it here: