🇺🇸 CD 1 — Rosa von Zehnle úr: „Desire against expectations: GDR 1984/1‟

🇺🇸 Rosa von Zehn­le (úr) – CD 1
“Desire against expec­ta­tions: GDR 1984/1”
These (my) poems were writ­ten in 1984 in a prison of the for­mer GDR. — In 2024, forty years lat­er, I set them to music.

My gift for Nation­al Beer Day!
On April 7, 2025, every­one here will have the spe­cial oppor­tu­ni­ty to lis­ten to the 26 tracks of my FIRST GDR-CD up to three times for free and in full length as a gift.

My first GDR-CD is now also avail­able in Eng­lish for Nation­al Beer Day in the USA – Cheers! 🍻 This day marks the anniver­sary of the Cullen-Har­ri­son Act of 1933, which allowed the sale of beer again after Pro­hi­bi­tion.

This arti­cle in these lan­guages:
🇭🇺 »> itt …
🇩🇪 »> hier …
🇺🇸 »> here …

Sum­ma­ry of the CD:
Final­ly, my first CD is dig­i­tal­ly avail­able, fea­tur­ing 26 tracks based on poems I wrote in prison in 1984. The texts, strong­ly shaped by pol­i­tics, reflect per­son­al expe­ri­ences and thoughts. The 13 songs appear in two ver­sions: one calm, the oth­er pow­er­ful.

This CD offers deep insight into my past and the exe­ge­sis of a life I had to live—born in West Ger­many but forced to endure 29 years with­in the Wall until 1989.

The CD offers a blend of musi­cal styles: gui­tar music, synth pop/wave, elec­tro swing, goth­ic and hard rock – see right col­umn below.

Click here for the album:
Rosa von Zehn­le úr:
“Wish­es Against expec­ta­tions: GDR 1984/1”

Here it is at last:
My first music CD!

All lyrics are 100% writ­ten by me. I wrote them 40 years ago in GDR prison, where I served 18 months for try­ing to flee the coun­try (8 months of which in a STASI prison).

Some of these poems earned me addi­tion­al penal­ties while impris­oned, which I took with a smile — and they even inspired me to write more polit­i­cal vers­es. Nei­ther 72 days in soli­tary con­fine­ment, nor 18 days and nights in a dark base­ment, nor hunger strikes, nor the STASI prison hos­pi­tal and oth­er harass­ments could break me. I was 24 years old and full of ener­gy — just like today!

About fifty poems were writ­ten back then, in 1984, many of which will be musi­cal­ly adapt­ed and released on future CDs.

This first CD includes the first 13 songs (11 of which are from 1984). The orig­i­nal poems rarely had refrains, since I didn’t intend them for music back then. The first demos already sparked debate: some pre­ferred the soft­er, oth­ers the more pow­er­ful ver­sions. That’s how the idea came to cre­ate two ver­sions of each of the 13 songs, result­ing in 26 tracks with over two hours of total play­time.

Lat­er this year, Hun­gar­i­an and Eng­lish ver­sions of this CD will also be released — and fans will be able to pur­chase all three ver­sions on a sin­gle DVD, for the price of one CD (see below: “Ten Advan­tages for Fans on Band­camp”, point 2).

Most of the orig­i­nal poems from 1984 still express the same thoughts and truths as they did forty years ago.
It’s strik­ing how lit­tle has changed in terms of pow­er and con­trol over the past four decades.

Music as a Heal­ing Force!
This CD shows pow­er­ful­ly how music helps process polit­i­cal, social and per­son­al expe­ri­ences. It trans­forms the past so that it’s not mere­ly a sad mem­o­ry, but becomes an ele­ment of heal­ing — dri­ving away the dark shad­ows of what was lived through, with­out grant­i­ng those neg­a­tive ener­gies more pow­er than they deserve.

Thus, the music of my first CD is a beam of light that breaks through and over­comes the dark­ness of the past – trans­form­ing once-tor­ment­ing mem­o­ries into gen­tle, audi­ble, musi­cal echoes that give us free­dom to dwell in the sto­ries of the songs with­out being ful­ly con­sumed by their trag­ic spell. My music unfolds a heal­ing force – one filled with strength, hope and con­fi­dence.

This CD is avail­able in:
🇭🇺 https://rab‑k.de/bc-ddr-cd-1-hu
🇩🇪 https://rab‑k.de/bc-ddr-cd-1-de
🇺🇸 https://rab‑k.de/bc-ddr-cd-1-en

This CD is avail­able in:
🇭🇺 https://rab‑k.de/bc-ddr-cd-1-hu
🇩🇪 https://rab‑k.de/bc-ddr-cd-1-de
🇺🇸 https://rab‑k.de/bc-ddr-cd-1-en

Rosa von Zehn­le úr:
“Wish­es against expec­ta­tions: GDR 1984/1”

Polit­i­cal­ly Shaped Reflec­tions:
01 – Par­adise of thoughts (1984)
02 – The real time (1984)
03 – The dif­fer­ence (1984)
04 – First thoughts (1984)
05 – … and wish­es (1984)
06 – Nuclear play­ground (1984)

Real Social­ist Every­day Life:
07 – Cur­rent col­lect­ing tip (1984)
08 – Become a par­ty mem­ber (1984)
09 – Ten lit­tle Tra­bis (1984)
10 – Spring is here (1984)
11 – Hap­py birth­day (1984)

Bonus Tracks from 2024:
12 – In memo­ri­am (2024)
13 – New-years-greet­ings (2024)


Click here for the album:
Rosa von Zehn­le úr:
“Wish­es Against expec­ta­tions: GDR 1984/1”
Please leave a com­ment below, fol­low me on Band­camp (“Fol­low” under my pho­to top right), and enjoy this CD with both mean­ing and delight.


Track Titles and Short Com­ments – How and Why These Songs Came to Be:

• 01 & 14 – Par­adise of thoughts:
  My thoughts look­ing out the barred prison win­dow.
• 02 & 15 – The real time:
  On the fleet­ing and per­ish­able nature of time.
• 03 & 16 – The dif­fer­ence:
  Con­trast between per­son­al insight and imposed pow­er.
• 04 & 17 – First thoughts:
  Ear­ly reflec­tions on lat­er release from STASI prison.
• 05 & 18 – … and wish­es:
  A 1984 song about Ger­man reuni­fi­ca­tion.
• 06 & 19 – Nuclear play­ground:
  Address­es the threat of nuclear war in 1984 and 2024.
• 07 & 20 – Become a par­ty mem­ber:
  Per­son­al expe­ri­ences in the GDR.
• 08 & 21 – Cur­rent col­lect­ing tip:
  Satir­i­cal take on polit­i­cal­ly dri­ven civic involve­ment.
• 09 & 22 – Ten lit­tle Tra­bis:
  Light and iron­ic, yet with deep­er mean­ing.
• 10 & 23 – Spring is here:
  A hope­ful and awak­en­ing song, open to polit­i­cal inter­pre­ta­tion.
• 11 & 24 – Hap­py birth­day:
  Birth­day wish­es with uni­ver­sal mes­sages.
• 12 & 25 – In memo­ri­am:
  A per­son­al remem­brance of my family’s fate.
• 13 & 26 – New-years-greet­ings:
  Pos­i­tive out­look on a more peace­ful year 2025.

Brief Note on Lyrics and Musi­cal Style:
These are the musi­cal styles of the 1980s that I love and used, as I still lis­ten to them today. I dis­trib­uted them across the tracks as fol­lows:
– Gui­tar & rather calm style (01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11 and 13), but also very expres­sive and musi­cal­ly pow­er­ful, with (for me) goose­bump moments (06 and 12);
– Synthpop/Synthwave (22);
– Goth­ic, Glam­rock and Hard/Rock (14–21, 23–26).


Click here for the album:
Rosa von Zehn­le úr:
“Wish­es against expec­ta­tions: GDR 1984/1”