🇺🇸 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 …

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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/ddr-cd-1-hu
🇩🇪 https://rab‑k.de/ddr-cd-1-de
🇺🇸 https://rab‑k.de/ddr-cd-1-en

This CD is available in:
HU Kí­vánsá­gok … NDK 1984/1
DE Wün­sche wie­der … DDR 1984/1
EN De­si­re against … GDR 1984/1

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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”