In The Previous Post

Madame X, a high ranking member of the Sisterhood of the Pointy Heels' politburo, made a comment that she suspected Nina Hagen of being an attempted He/She infiltrator to the sisterhood.

Nina Hagen

I realise that, as Madame advances in years, her grasp of reality may have become a little tenuous. I realise that Madame, as a child of the nineteen-thirties, finds anything which came after about nineteen-fifty a little confusing and a little threatening.

Nina's stage persona is pretty threatening, I suppose, a pioneer of punk-rock, rubber-faced, sharp-edged at times, but fully female from the start. She did not grow up in short pants as Nikolaus, and go under the knife in later years.

Little Nina born in 1955, grew up in East Germany,  daughter of an actress and a writer. Her parents divorced when she was two, and her mother remarried, to dissident poet/singer/songwriter/writer Wolf Biermann.

Biermann was banned from publishing his poems, and performing his songs, Nina grew up in a household under suspicion by the state security police.

Like many little girls, she started ballet classes at age four, sang constantly, and was, by age nine, something of a prodigy, expected to become an opera singer.  Her heroine was Astrid Lindgren's "Pippi Longstocking", a little girl who seizes all opportunities without a care for the consequences, and lives life to the full.

She studied acting, and loved singing and performing, but was seen as being too flamboyant and impulsive by her dour, grey, east-german mentors.

When Biermann visited West Berlin to perform in a concert, the East German authorities declared him to be an "enemy of the state", and refused him re-entry to his homeland.  Nina's mother went too. Nina, making the false claim that he was her natural father, applied for an exit visa, but was refused.

She caused a fuss, and threatened to become a worse thorn in their sides than Biermann had ever been. By that time she was a well known performer, and the government kicked her out with, one suspects, a sigh of relief.

As soon as she hit the west, the demure little girl morphed into the valkyrie of punk.

But still all-woman!

Whilst pregnant, she claims to have seen a flying saucer, which led to her naming her daughter Cosma-Shiva.

Cosma-Shiva is now a well known actress in Germany, and significantly less controversial than her mother.

I realise Mildred X will remain unconvinced, but I'll post a couple more videos now, showing the young Nina, before her metamorphosis. I think it's clear, even in the early days, that this girl was not going to be a compliant little drone, her personality is too strong for her to stay in step with the crowd.
I like "Hatschi Waldera", a song about having a cold (hatschi!=atchoo!)
"Sneezy Waldera"



"Ich bin erkältet
Ich habe einen Schnupfen"

I have a cold
I have a cold
And I can not in the sunshine prance
I'm standing at the window, and watching in our garden
as you sit there and beckon me to dance
Sneezy Waldera

You're so sweet, Hutsi-Putsi
Sneezy Waldera
I've loved you
Sneezy Waldera
And when I have my health again
Then I'll kiss and kiss you, and

I'll kiss you a thousand times
You bring me flowers and easter-egg dragees
Because I prefer the sweets of our togetherness
Another week, then I'll be back

And we can be together as before
 

One of her songs "Du Hast den Farbfilm Vergessen", ("You Forgot the Colour Film") was ostensibly about a girl castigating her boyfriend for forgetting the colour film on holiday, whilst being a tongue-in-cheek satire of the greyness of communist East Germany. 

High was the sallow thorn on the beach of Hildensea
Micha, my Micha, and I hurt so much
that the rabbit timidly peeked out of the tree
So loudly, my sorrow cried, into the sky so blue

So angrily my naked foot stomped the sand
and I jerked my shoulder from your hand
Micha, my Micha, and everything hurt so much
Do that again, Micha, and I'll leave

You  forgot the color film, my Michael
Now, no one believes us, how beautiful it was here, ha, ha
You forgot the color film, Michael,
Everything was blue and white and green and now no longer real

You have forgot the color film, my dear,
Everything was blue and white and green and now no longer real

Now, I sit by you and myself at home again
and search for the pictures for a photo album
Me, in a bikini, me, naked
Me, sexy in a mini-skirt, the landscape is there, too

But,  terribly, the tears roll down
Nature, and Nina,  just in black and white
Micha, my Micha,  everything hurts so much
Do that once again, Micha, andI swear I'll leave

You forgot the color film, my Michael
Now, no one believes, how beautiful it was was here, ha, ha
You forgot the color film,
Everything was blue and white and green and now no longer real

You forgot the color film,
Everything was blue and white and green and now no longer real



Madame X, if you think this is a male infiltrator, you're deranged.

Nina!