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“Lili Marleen” (also spelled “Lili Marlen’“, “Lilli Marlene“, “Lily Marlene“, “Lili Marlène” among others; German pronunciation: [ˈlɪliː maʁˈleːn(ə)]) is a German love song that became popular during World War II throughout Europe and the Mediterranean among both Axis and Allied troops. Written in 1915 as a poem, the song was published in 1937 and was first recorded by Lale Andersen in 1939 as “Das Mädchen unter der Laterne” (“The Girl under the Lantern”).
In 2005, Bear Family Records released a 7-CD set Lili Marleen an allen Fronten (“Lili Marleen on all Fronts”), including nearly 200 versions of “Lili Marleen” with a 180-page booklet. (ISBN 3-89916-154-8).
Creation
The True Story of Lili Marlene (1944), a British documentary by Humphrey Jennings
_-_Marlene_Dietrich.jpg#/media/File:"Lili_Marlene"-"Symphonie"_(7")_-_Marlene_Dietrich.jpg)
By DECCA Records – Fair use, Link
Propaganda postcard of the German Wehrmacht‘s postal service in Paris, 1942, with Lili Marleen motif. By (Gefreiter) Schaller (drawing); (Gefreiter) Beier (print); Deutsche Wehrmacht – “Militärbefehlshaber Frankreich – Platzkommandantur des Kommandanten von Paris”, Paris 1942 (Publisher) – scan of original, Public Domain, Link
The words were written in 1915 as a poem of three verses by Hans Leip (1893–1983), a school teacher from Hamburg who had been conscripted into the Imperial German Army. Leip reportedly combined the nickname of his friend’s girlfriend, Lili, with the name of another friend, Marleen, who was a nurse. The poem was later published in 1937 as “Das Lied eines jungen Soldaten auf der Wacht” (“The Song of a Young Soldier on Watch”), with two further verses added.
It was set to music by Norbert Schultze in 1938 and recorded by Lale Andersen for the first time in 1939. In early 1942 she recorded the song in English, the lyrics translated by Norman Baillie-Stewart, a turncoat former British army officer working for German propaganda . Songwriter Tommie Connor also wrote English lyrics with the title “Lily of the Lamplight” in 1944. Another English translation was done by Dr. Theodore Stephanides during World War II and published in his memoir Climax in Crete in 1946.
Exposure and reception
By CC BY-SA 3.0, Link,. First recording of Lili Marlen, dated 2 August 1939, by Electrola Studio, Berlin. Label of one of the different variants that appeared during the war. The oldest label shows that the original song title was first called “Song of a Young Sentry”.
Exposure and reception
After the occupation of Belgrade in 1941, Radio Belgrade became the German forces’ radio station under the name of Soldatensender Belgrad (Soldiers’ Radio Belgrade), with transmissions heard throughout Europe and the Mediterranean.
While on leave in Vienna, a lieutenant working at the station was asked to collect a pile of second-hand records from the Reich radio station. Among them was “Lili Marleen” sung by Lale Andersen, which up till then had sold around 700 copies. Karl-Heinz Reintgen, the German officer in charge of the station, began playing the song on the air. For lack of other recordings, Radio Belgrade played the song frequently.
At one point the Nazi government’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, ordered broadcasting of the song to stop. Radio Belgrade received letters from Axis soldiers all over Europe asking them to play “Lili Marleen” again. Erwin Rommel, commander of the Afrika Korps, admired the song and asked Radio Belgrade to incorporate it into their broadcasts. Goebbels reluctantly changed his mind, and from then on the tune was used to sign-off the broadcast at 9:55 p.m.
The song was published in South Africa, in a wartime leaflet, with an anonymous English translation, as “Lili Marleen: The Theme Song of the Eighth Army and the 6th Armoured Division“.
Lale Andersen was awarded a gold disc for over one million sales (HMV – EG 6993). It is thought she was awarded her copy after hostilities ended. HMV’s copy was discarded during renovations to their Oxford Street store in the 1960s, but the disc was recovered and is now in a private collection.
Many Allied soldiers made a point of listening to the song at the end of the day. For example, in his memoir Eastern Approaches, Fitzroy Maclean describes the song’s effect in the spring of 1942 during the Western Desert Campaign: “Husky, sensuous, nostalgic, sugar-sweet, her voice seemed to reach out to you, as she lingered over the catchy tune, the sickly sentimental words. Belgrade… The continent of Europe seemed a long way away. I wondered when I would see it again and what it would be like by the time we got there.”
The next year, parachuted into the Yugoslav guerrilla war, Maclean wrote: “Sometimes at night, before going to sleep, we would turn on our receiving set and listen to Radio Belgrade. For months now, the flower of the Afrika Korps had been languishing behind the barbed wire of Allied prison camps. But still, punctually at ten o’clock, came Lale Andersen singing their special song, with the same unvarying, heart-rending sweetness that we knew so well from the desert. […] Belgrade was still remote. But, now […] it had become our ultimate goal, which Lili Marlene and her nostalgic little tune seemed somehow to symbolise.”
In the autumn of 1944, the liberation of Belgrade seemed not far away. “Then, at ten o’clock, loud and clear, Radio Belgrade; Lili Marlene, sweet, insidious, melancholy. ‘Not much longer now,’ we would say, as we switched it off.” As the Red Army was advancing on Belgrade, he reflected again on the song. “At Valjevo, as at so many other places […] we would tune our wireless sets in the evening to Radio Belgrade, and night after night, always at the same time, would come, throbbing lingeringly over the ether, the cheap, sugary and almost painfully nostalgic melody, the sex-laden, intimate, heart-rending accents of Lili Marlene. ‘Not gone yet,’ we would say to each other. ‘I wonder if we’ll find her when we get there.’ Then one evening at the accustomed time there was silence. ‘Gone away,’ we said.”
Allied soldiers in Italy later adapted the tune to their own lyrics, creating the “D-Day Dodgers” song.
A cartoon by Bill Mauldin in the American army newspaper Stars and Stripes shows two soldiers in a foxhole, one playing a harmonica, while the other comments, “The krauts ain’t following ya too good on ‘Lili Marlene’ tonight, Joe. Think somethin’ happened to their tenor?”
Marlene Dietrich version
By DECCA Records – Fair use, Link
| “Lili Marlene” | |
|---|---|
| Single by Marlene Dietrich | |
| B-side | “Symphonie” |
| Released | 7 September 1945 |
| Recorded | 1944 |
| Genre | JazzPop |
| Length | 4:45 |
| Label | Decca (US)Brunswick (UK)MCA (re-issue) |
| Songwriter(s) | Norbert SchultzeHans LeipEnglish lyrics: Lili Marlene |
| Marlene Dietrich singles chronology | |
| “Falling in Love Again“ (1939)”Lili Marlene“ (1945)”Illusions” (1948) |
In 1944, the Morale Operations Branch of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) initiated the Muzak Project, musical propaganda broadcasts designed to demoralize enemy soldiers. Marlene Dietrich, the only performer who was told her recordings would be for OSS use, recorded a number of songs in German for the project, including “Lili Marleen”.
Dietrich also performed “Lili Marlene”, as well as many other songs, live in Europe for Allied troops, often on rickety, makeshift stages.
“Lili Marleen” became a massive success, specifically on the German language OSS MO radio station Soldatensender, where it became the station’s theme song. After its warm reception by the troops in Europe, the song was re-recorded and released, with the spelling “Lili Marlene” after her name, Marlene, with Charles Magnante on the accordion, citing him as the “orchestra director” for both it and the single’s B-side, “Symphonie”, sung in French. The single was released by Decca Records in 1945. The original OSS recording of “Lili Marleen” remains unissued.
In 1961, Dietrich starred in the film Judgment at Nuremberg, a dramatization of the war trials. In one scene she walks down a rubbled street, ravaged by Allied attacks, with Spencer Tracy‘s character. As they approach a bar they hear men inside singing “Lili Marleen” in German. Dietrich begins to sing along with the song, translating a few lyrics for Tracy, referring to the German lyrics as “much sadder” than the English.
While she was touring the world in live one-woman cabaret shows from 1953 to 1975, the song was part of Dietrich’s usual line-up, usually following “Falling in Love Again“.
She always introduced her signature song with some variation of this quote, from a 1960s concert, somewhere in Europe:
Now, here is a song that is very close to my heart. I sang it during the war. I sang it for three long years, all through Africa, Sicily, Italy, to Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, to England, through France, through Belgium … [long pause] … to Germany, and to Czechoslovakia. The soldiers loved it, ‘Lili Marlene’.
Dietrich sang “Lili Marlene” in her television special An Evening with Marlene Dietrich, which aired on the BBC in the UK and on CBS in the US in 1973, and was featured on four of her six original albums. She also recorded and performed it in both the original German version and the English adaptation. Both versions have appeared on countless compilation albums worldwide, several of them titled after the song.
After 5 shows in Japan, between 15 and 25 December 1974, two singles of the song were released by both EMI and MCA Records in 1975. The MCA Records release (D-1284) peaked #93 in the Oricon charts and spend three weeks there, and sold a total of 8,000 copies, this version has “Falling in Love Again” as a B-side. The EMI release (EMR-10761) peaked #42 in the charts and spend 11 weeks in it, selling a total of 56,000 in the country, this version has “Die Antwort Weiss Ganz Allein Der Wind” (Blowin’ In The Wind) as a B-side.
Connie Francis version
| “Lili Marleen” | |
|---|---|
| Single by Connie Francis | |
| B-side | “Mond von Mexico” |
| Released | 1962 |
| Recorded | A-side: 3 June 1961B-side: 5 October 1961(both at Austrophon Studio, Vienna) |
| Genre | Schlager music |
| Length | 1:55 |
| Label | MGM Records (61 053) |
| Songwriter(s) | Norbert SchultzeHans Leip |
| Producer(s) | Gerhard Mendelsohn |
| Connie Francis German singles chronology | |
| “Eine Insel für zwei“ (1962)”Lili Marleen“ (1962)”Tu’ mir nicht weh“ (1962) |
American entertainer Connie Francis recorded “Lili Marlene” on 3 June 1961. She recorded the single’s B-side, “Mond von Mexico”, on 5 October 1961. Both songs were recorded in Vienna, Austria at the Austrophon Studio. The single was released in 1962, marking her seventh single in German.
Francis also recorded the song in Italian
and French. Her version of “Lili Marleen” peaked at number 9 on the German music charts.
Amanda Lear version
| “Lili Marleen” | |
|---|---|
| Single by Amanda Lear | |
| from the album Never Trust a Pretty Face | |
| B-side | “Pretty Boys”, “Dreamer (South Pacific)” |
| Released | 1978 |
| Recorded | 1978 |
| Genre | Euro disco |
| Length | 4:45 |
| Label | Ariola Records |
| Songwriter(s) | Norbert SchultzeHans LeipTommie Connor |
| Producer(s) | Anthony Monn |
| Amanda Lear singles chronology | |
| “Gold“ (1978)”Lili Marleen“ (1978)”The Sphinx“ (1978) |
French singer Amanda Lear recorded a Eurodisco cover of the song in 1978 and released it as the B-side of the single “Gold” as well as a standalone single. The German-English language version later appeared on her third studio LP Never Trust a Pretty Face. French editions of the album included a German-French version of the track.
Lear performed “Lili Marleen” in the 1978 Italian film Zio Adolfo in arte Führer.
The singer later re-recorded the song for her albums Cadavrexquis (1993) and Heart (2001), the latter version with updated lyrics, written by Norbert Schultze shortly before his passing.
Other versions
While the Italian version, translated by lyricist Nino Rastelli and recorded in 1942 by Lina Termini, was probably the first to be released, the earliest English language recording of the song was probably Anne Shelton‘s, but a number of cover versions followed.
The Shadows – Lili Marlene
A version called “The D-Day Dodgers” with words by Harry Pynn was sung by the allied troops in Italy once the Normandy invasion had begun in 1944. A recording was made by Perry Como on 27 June 1944 and issued by RCA Victor on 78 rpm (catalog number 20-1592-A)
with the flip side “First Class Private Mary Brown”.
This recording was later re-issued as catalog number 20-2824-A with flip side “I Love You Truly”. The song reached chart position #13 on the United States charts. The song was recorded during the musicians’ strike and consequently has a backing chorus instead of an orchestral backup.
A version with French words by Henri Lemarchand was recorded by Suzy Solidor in 1941.
Other artists who recorded the song included Hildegarde (on Decca),
Bing Crosby (recorded 30 December 1947), Martha Tilton (on Coral),
and Vaughn Monroe (on V-Disc).
Al Martino revived the song for Capitol Records in 1968.
Another version was recorded in the 1960s by Hank Locklin,
A German version of the song also covered by Edith ‘Lolita’ Zuser.
An instrumental version was also covered by Billy Vaughn.
Hank Snow also recorded a version in 1963 on his album “I’ve Been Everywhere”.
Another French singer, Patricia Kaas used “Lili Marlene” as an intro for her song “D’Allemagne” and sang the entire song during concerts in the 1990s.
Matia Bazar (Italy) recorded an up tempo beat song called “Lili Marleen” on her 1982 album Berlino, Parigi, Londra. The song is a “spoken words” early 1980s dance track. Spanish group Olé Olé, led by Marta Sánchez, released an electro-pop version of the song in 1985. It became one of the best-selling singles in Spain of the 1980s, and paved way for the singer to have a successful career. The song was eventually included in the also best-selling album Bailando sin salir de casa in 1986. German blackmetal band Eisregen recorded a version of “Lili Marlene” on their album Hexenhaus. The German Gothic metal/Industrial metal band Atrocity released the song in both languages (English & German) on Gemini: on the blue edition was the German version, and on the red edition was the English version. Kid Creole and the Coconuts included an uptempo, disco-influenced version of “Lili Marlene”, with German lyrics sung by Coconut Adriana Kaegi, on their 1980 debut LP release Off the Coast of Me.
Carly Simon recorded the song as the third track on her 1997 Arista CD Film Noir.
It has also been translated into Hawaiian by Kiope Raymond, and recorded by Raymond and Pearl Rose on Rose’s 2000 album Homecoming.
Most recently it was recorded by Neil Hannon of the Irish pop group The Divine Comedy as a B-side to the 2006 single “A Lady of a Certain Age”. A slow-tempo instrumental version can be found on the compilation LP, Vienna: City of Dreams, by the Austrian zither master Anton Karas. “Lili Marlene” has been adopted as the regimental slow march by the Special Air Service, Special Air Service Regimentess
Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry,
and its melody is the basis of the official march of Kodam III/Siliwangi in the Indonesian Army.
During WWII Soviet counterpropaganda officer (and future dissident) Lev Kopelev wrote a mockery parody of the original song for demoralization of enemy soldiers. The original text (in German) of this parody is lost, but famous Russian poet Joseph Brodsky wrote a poem in Russian, based on this parody. The poem is quite different from the original German song, though many Russians think the Brodsky version is an exact translation.
Other interpretations
It has been sung and marched as ‘passacaille’ and slow march by the Military of Chile in its adaptation to the Spanish Language. See the following video as an example.
It is also adapted to Indonesian as “March of Siliwangi Division” of the Indonesian Army. It was first sung by the Siliwangi Division while marching from West Java to Yogyakarta as a result of the Renville Agreement with the Dutch Government in February 1948. The song has 2 languages in 1 song, Indonesian and Sundanese (language used by the people of West Java). See following song.
Humphrey Jennings directed the 29-minute-long film The True Story of Lili Marlene in 1944 about the song.
The song features prominently in Lili Marlene (1950), starring Lisa Daniely. The film tells a fictionalised version of the story of the woman (played by Daniely) who purportedly inspired the song.
The song is sung in a bar in Germany in the 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg. In a scene featuring Marlene Dietrich (who famously recorded the song several times), and Spencer Tracy, Dietrich’s character explains to Tracy’s that the German words are much sadder than the English translations.
The song’s popularity among both Allied and Axis troops in the Western Desert front during World War Two was described in the British television program The World at War, a signal documentary series broadcast in 1973-74 and narrated by Laurence Olivier, in Episode 8, “The Desert: North Africa 1940-1943”.
Malcolm Arnold took inspiration from “Lili Marleen” in the opening theme to the “St. Trinians” films.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder directed the 1980 film Lili Marleen, the story of Lale Andersen and her version of the song.
The song is featured prominently in a scene of a 1983 Yugoslavian film Balkan Express set during World War II. In the scene, a bar singer (portrayed by popular folk singer Toma Zdravković) refuses to sing the song to some German soldiers who then escort him out of the bar. Later in the scene, he returns to the stage and is depicted singing the song with blood on his face, implying he had been persuaded into singing by beating.
In the 1983 film The Right Stuff, a group of German rocket scientists working for NASA sing the song around a piano in a bar the night before one of the space flights.
The song appears several times during the World War II-themed 1988-1989 television miniseries War and Remembrance. On the Allied side, it is played during a party attended by some of the British and American characters, prompting the British journalist Philip Rule to sarcastically lament that the only memorable song to come out of the war would be “a cheap Hun ballad.” On the German side, the SS men riding on the train taking the last Theresienstadt Jews to Auschwitz slowly sing it.
Estonian punk rock band Vennaskond released an Estonian version of the song on their album Usk. Lootus. Armastus. in 1993.
Another Estonian group, Swing Swindlers, recorded a melancholy swinging version in 2007 (both in German and Estonian) and featured the song in their film Berlin 1945: Musik Unter Bomben with vocals by Mart Sander, Kelli Uustani, Nele-Liis Vaiksoo, and Pirjo Levandi.
The 2009 film Bad Day to Go Fishing, directed by Alvaro Brechner, showed an uncontrollable titan (Jouko Ahola) who could only be appeased by the melody of “Lili Marlene”.
British singer-songwriter Katy Carr featured this song in English on her album Coquette (2009).
Dutch folk band Omnia recorded a version of the song on their 2011 album Musick and Poëtree.
It is often used as a song on the I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue round One Song to the Tune of Another. Whenever it is used, jokes are often made to the German heritage of the song, by making allusions to the Third Reich. (The song “Bermuda Triangle” was sung to the tune of “Lili Marlene” in one episode of the show.)
The song is referenced by Leonard Cohen in his 1971 released song, Famous Blue Raincoat.
Spanish singer Marta Sánchez sang a Spanish version both solo, and with her band Olé Olé.
In 2019 TV series Pennyworth, the SAS veterans, to whom the main character belongs, use Lili Marleen as their funeral march.
莉莉玛莲 Lili Marleen (中文版 Chinese version)
LILI MARLEEN – Award winning WW2 Short Film | Wehrmacht/Airborne – German Perspective
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to navigationJump to searchThis article is about the 1950 British film. For the 1981 German film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, see Lili Marleen (film). For the song, see Lili Marleen.
By RKO Studios – Fair use, Link
| Lilli Marlene | |
|---|---|
| US cinema poster | |
| Directed by | Arthur Crabtree |
| Written by | Leslie Wood |
| Screenplay by | Leslie Wood |
| Produced by | William J. Gell |
| Starring | Lisa Daniely Hugh McDermott Stanley Baker |
| Cinematography | Jack Asher |
| Edited by | Lister Laurance |
| Music by | Stanley Black |
| Production company | William Gell Productions |
| Distributed by | Monarch Film (UK) RKO Radio Pictures (US) |
| Release dates | 8 December 1950 (UK) 25 July 1951 (US) |
| Running time | 85 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Lilli Marlene is a 1950 British war film aimed for the US market and directed by Arthur Crabtree. It stars Lisa Daniely, Hugh McDermott, and Richard Murdoch. Stanley Baker is seen in one of his early support roles.
Plot
A French girl named Lilli Marlene, working in her uncle’s café in Benghazi, Libya, turns out to be the girl that the popular German wartime song Lili Marleen had been written for before the war, so both the British and the Germans try to use her for propaganda purposes – especially as it turns out that she can sing as well. The Germans try to snatch her at one point, but don’t succeed, and she performs several times for the British troops and also appears in radio broadcasts to the USA, arranged by Steve, an American war correspondent embedded with the British Eighth Army, who eventually becomes her boyfriend.
Later, the Germans successfully kidnap her in Cairo and she is taken to Berlin, where she is interrogated and repeatedly told that she had been tortured and brainwashed by the British to think that she was French, when she actually is German. Once the Germans think that she has been transformed into a loyal Nazi, they set her to make broadcasts in English for the Third Reich. Her old British friends, and especially Steve, are very disappointed in her.
After the war, she reappears in London during a big reunion for members of the Eighth Army. She manages to convince Steve and a few of her other Eighth Army friends that she never betrayed the British; however, British security agents try to arrest her. Steve and another old friend, Berry, take off with her in their broadcasting van, chased by the security people. They drive to an address in London that she had been given by the German colonel in charge of her broadcasts, in case she ever went to London and was in need of help. When they get there, she finds that the German colonel lives in it. It turns out that he is actually a British intelligence officer who was working undercover in Berlin during the war. He informs them and the security people that Lilli was never a traitor, and that, in all her communications, there were encoded messages to the British intelligence services back in London.
Once they know the truth, Steve and Berry take her back to the reunion, where everybody is told that Lilli never was a traitor. She sings the Lili Marleen song for all of them and afterwards she and Steve kiss.
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Follow-up film
Three years later, Arthur Crabtree made a follow-up film with the same actors playing Marlene and Steve: The Wedding of Lilli Marlene.
| The Wedding of Lilli Marlene | |
|---|---|
| Trade ad from The Daily Film Renter, 1953 | |
| Directed by | Arthur Crabtree |
| Screenplay by | John Baines |
| Produced by | William J. Gell |
| Starring | Lisa Daniely Hugh McDermott |
| Cinematography | Arthur Grant |
| Edited by | Douglas Myers |
| Music by | Eric Rogers |
| Production company | Monarch Productions |
| Distributed by | Monarch Film Corporation (UK) |
| Release date | 1953 |
| Running time | 87 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Wedding of Lilli Marlene is a 1953 British drama film directed by Arthur Crabtree and starring Lisa Daniely, Hugh McDermott and Sid James. It was made at Southall Studios, as a sequel to the 1950 film Lilli Marlene.
Sid James affects an American accent as an entrepreneur running a London theatre.
Premise
After the end of World War 2, Lilli Marlene and American reporter Steve Moray plan to marry, but when Lilli gets a chance for a big break on the London stage, it throws their plans into disarray.
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This article is about the 1981 film. For the 1950 British film, see Lilli Marlene (film).
| Lili Marleen | |
|---|---|
| Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Rainer Werner Fassbinder |
| Written by | Lale Andersen Rainer Werner Fassbinder Manfred Purzer Joshua Sinclair |
| Produced by | Luggi Waldleitner Enzo Peri Horst Wendlandt |
| Starring | Hanna Schygulla |
| Cinematography | Xaver Schwarzenberger Michael Ballhaus |
| Edited by | Rainer Werner Fassbinder Juliane Lorenz |
| Music by | Peer Raben |
| Release date | 14 January 1981 |
| Running time | 120 minutes |
| Country | West Germany |
| Language | German |
Lili Marleen is a 1981 West German drama film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and starring Hanna Schygulla. The screenplay was produced using the autobiographical novel Der Himmel hat viele Farben (The Heavens Have Many Colors) by Lale Andersen. However, according to Andersen’s last husband, Arthur Beul, the film’s plot bore little relation to her real life.
Plot
The film is set during the Third Reich and is about the forbidden love between the German singer Willie (Hanna Schygulla) and the Swiss Jewish composer Robert Mendelssohn (a character based on Rolf Liebermann), who actively seeks to help an underground group of German Jews.
Awards and nominations
Of the 23 theatrical films that Fassbinder directed, Lili Marleen was the only one that Germany submitted to the academy to be considered for a Best Foreign Language Film nomination. The film, while a German production, was one of the few that Fassbinder shot in English. Ultimately, the film was not nominated.
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