Rock and Progression

When shouting did have an effect

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

As if the Second World War wasn’t bad enough in itself, it left a tense situation in the former capital of the main aggressor of the war, which was Germany, and Berlin became split and was no longer one city but two — with a wall crossing through it, very visibly demonstrating that there were now two Germany.

The Free World, and the Less Free

DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or in English, the German People’s Republic) was the part of Germany that had been occupied by the Soviet Union during the final phase of the war — where the Western allies occupied the rest.

The allies in the West could agree on gathering all their pieces of the conquered country into a new Germany, considering that something had to be done with it. It couldn’t just remain occupied forever.

The Soviet Union had similar thoughts, but there was no agreement between the two sides on creating one new Germany, so it ended up with two.

After a period where lots of people were leaving the new Eastern Germany, the desperate leaders of the new country decided to stop it the hard way: by building the wall, completely equipped with watch towers and soldiers standing there, ready to shoot anyone who looked like they may want to climb it to get to the other side.

Berlin was a special case in many ways, as it was split between East and West, but by itself, it was placed in the middle of what had become the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, as we preferred to call it in the West.

So, the western part of it, West Berlin, was surrounded by East Germany on all sides. Many problems appeared out of that situation, but the West managed to remain strong and in control of their part, and this came to feed the dreams of the East Berliners who felt more and more imprisoned and suppressed.

The West as a Saviour

There is a lot of symbolism connected with many things that occurred after that wall was built. Radio Free Europe, for instance, was a radio station sent from the West but meant for Eastern Europeans — and was pure propaganda, emphasizing how much better the West was.

Lots of musical concerts also occurred, and one of these is the focus of this article — a concert by the British progressive rock band Barclay James Harvest (BJH) in West Berlin, 1980.

It was called a concert for the people, and you may wonder what people… obviously a reference to the people in the People’s Republic, the DDR. Held in West Berlin but intended for East Berlin.

The concert was held in front of the Reichstag building, the former government building, near the wall. The concert could be heard in East Berlin and, as you can hear, the band wanted the East Berliners to hear it…!

Barclay James Harvest, HYMN (Live in Berlin) (1980) — on YouTube. 250,000 people listening and cheering.

Turn it up loud! It deserves it. I think the overall situation they were all in can make the little hairs on the neck rise…

The Lyrics and The Message

Now, this is peculiar — BJH was not known for being religious, and I think that there was a completely different purpose for phrasing their “Hymn” as they did (if you didn’t catch the lyrics out of the video, here is another video with the lyrics printed: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ytmd4).

Some of the key points are that

• you should not try to fly, because then you may not come down again

• You cannot see God from your side of the mountain, it is too high — you need to move to the other side

• God is your saviour (or so said Jesus)

The words were intended for people in East Germany, which was by definition an atheist country. The population was already mostly non-religious before the DDR was created (check out this article from The Guardian for more info on this: Eastern Germany: The Most Godless Place on Earth). That might make you wonder: was the reference to God and Jesus well-picked?

I think that the simple symbolism of needing to get over the mountain to be able to see (God) the saviour — was in other words (my words): “Cross that wall to be saved! We will save you if you do,” but perhaps with a built-in warning that attempting it may be fatal.

Strange Aftermath

In 1987, just a few years later — many open-air rock concerts in Berlin later, with various rock bands roaring a “YEAH!” over and over again across the wall in the split city — BJH somehow was allowed to perform, as the first ever Western rock band, a concert in East Berlin.

Obviously, the East German leaders, who were at that time under pressure, had not understood the message. Two years later, the wall was torn down by the masses. The big prison was opened, and the people officially became free.

Progression

Progressive rock music was “a thing” in the 1960s and 1970s, and I was too young by then to notice — or maybe it was mostly a thing in the UK, not really getting all the way to Denmark, where I grew up. When that “concert for the people” was held, I was just an eleven-year-old who knew about neither BJH nor the concert. I do think that I at the time was fully aware of what East Berlin was, but it was a very remote thing for me (not by distance but by mindset).

I knew nothing about progressive rock until a couple of years later when as a teenager I developed an interest in music, very much helped by the fact that I got an old record player at that time, making it possible for me to discover this new universe.

And this concert recording was one of the first records I heard. I didn’t own it, but my brother did. Later I got my own copy of it, which I still listen to now and then.

The music was called progressive and considered a new development, hence “a progression.” It was probably never meant to cause progression, but I believe that it did — it pushed along with many other things the development of the DDR into self-destruction.

And Where Did That Lead Us?

The people in Eastern Germany — now part of the BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland), previously known as West Germany — are still godless.

Being saved was a different thing than the “seeing God” in the song could have indicated, but it was very much in line with what we all in the West wanted — a world based on individual freedom to plan life, work with whatever, think, write, and sing whatever, and to buy a lot of stuff from the mass producers.

It is not uncommon for the saved people to feel betrayed, because they were immediately considered a burden, lesser valuable people, when getting included in the BRD.

The enthusiasm and dream of getting to that other side of the mountain, which led them to break down the wall, were killed off by the fact that now that the West had reached its goal, the people were no longer an interesting topic to spend time on.

The East Germans had rock music on their minds for a while, and mountains to cross. They broke down the wall with that rock and flew high when crossing the mountains. And they fell hard on the rocky ground when landing.

They tried to fly and they came down again. But the music is still flying, hanging in the air to remind us.