You forgot the color film, my Michael
Now no one believes us, how beautiful it was here, ha-ha, ha-ha
You forgot the color film, for my soul
Everything blue and white and green and later no longer true
She was in East Germany in 1975, she laments how gray it is there. Her boyfriend Micheal, her heart forgot the color film on vacation, now they will have no memories of marvelous color, the only reprieve they had from their lives.
The sea buckthorn stood tall on the beach of Hiddensee
Micha, my Micha, and everything hurt so much
That the rabbits looked shyly out of their burrows
So loudly did my suffering erupt into the blue sky (Hah)
So angrily did my bare foot stamp on the sand
And I knocked your hand off my shoulder
Micha, my Micha, and everything hurt so much
Do that again, Micha, and I'll go
Am I alone here? This song cut straight through to my soul. There are no other songs right now in my heart. This is it. You have forgotten the color film. Now no one will believe the colors. ha ha ha, it is a manic sadness, a dull razor of seeing that my pain is just as silly as your indifference.
Einmal. Again. Sing it again. I’m learning the words. Maybe if I can understand why this heartbreak happened so long ago and again, and again. Authoritarians never change I guess. It’s all just territory to them, they don’t care about the very silly Germans who get stuck under their rule.
Really that’s what was the bridge too far, along with Poland and Czech land. Culturally, they were just not similar enouugh to relate to Moscow.
I ran into another one, a very silly German man who didn’t care. This city distracts a lot of them. American cities are good at distracting my cultural values. My ties are a bit stronger, knowing more history and language as well as family history. I think about East Germany a lot, how much like Oklahoma it might have felt.
Bunch of oligarchs came through and stripped the country for resources, leaving everyone to scrape by. Yeah, that’s exactly how most of Oklahoma works. We obey edicts that make no sense at all. Our leaders are publicly incompetent. The only way to get ahead is either to be connected in the private sector or to be crooked in the public one.
Quite a lot of people stay because it’s home. That’s the case so many places. However they resent it, that’s what the song is about. They find ways to escape, and when those escapes fail it is really upsetting. For a lot of us, it’s constant agony.
Again, my therapist says I don’t hate all Oklahomans. I tell her not to rain on my ambitions. Anyone who is unfortunate enough to bare that label has been cursed, and it is my aspiration to help them shake it off. Don’t forget the color film, and in fact forget to return to the grey life you left behind. Ah ha ha ha ha.