Milk And Alcohol / Cover Version German By Frank Zander - No. 214

Milk And Alcohol / Cover Version German By Frank Zander

What's the best known Dr. Feelgood song? Without a shadow of a doubt, this is "Milk And Alcohol". What's the most covered Dr. Feelgood song? Equally without a doubt, "Milk And Alcohol". Legions of bands have tried their hands on the track and quite a few have succeeded. Most of them have the lyrics in English and I'm just aware of a handful of artists transcribing the text into their own native language. Tohtori Lounamo is such a case, their "Milk And Alcohol" translates into "Kossua Ja Kaakaomaitoa", which is Finnish to you and me.

And there is the version Frank Zander put out in about 1980 called "Blut und Alkohol" (Blood And Alcohol). Now, Frank Zander is quite well known in Germany and the German speaking countries such as Switzerland and Austria and he must have sold a ton of records during his heyday as a recording artist. There was a time when you couldn't escape him on TV, be it as a singer or a presenter of a show. Mr. Zander always took the parody route and excelled in funny German lyrics (which is a feat in itself). Granted, he was a guest on TV shows like the ZDF Hitparade (second German TV charts), which was exclusively for Schlager until they opened up when the NDW (Neue Deutsche Welle) came along.

I did know that Frank Zander was still somewhere around but supposed that he was living the easy life somewhere in the countryside. And what should I be tripping over only recently, a new album (and not a rehashed "Best Of" or the like). Except ... there's "Blut und Alkohol" on this one. As mentioned above, the "original" was released in 1980 or thereabouts, so I have to assume that this is a new version. However, I'm not sure and have to locate my original 7" somewhere in the collection.

It's quite entertaining and if you have some knowledge of the teutonic language, even funny. I'm not going into further details about this CD, but if you're a Dr. Feelgood buff worth his/her salt, you want this one. I do admit, in general, it could be a bit tiresome at times, listening to Frank Zander because funny lyrics just tend to become stale. But even so, the music saves the day in most cases and his recordings carry through, even to this day.

And now, let's all sing "Blut und Alkohol".

Cheers

Roland