Stephan Sulke: 80 live

In the organizer's words:

Songwriter, a wonderfully old-fashioned word, it fits Reinhard Mey and Konstantin Wecker, it's just made for Stephan Sulke. And not because the word reminds us that there was a time when intelligence was still artistic rather than artificial, but because songwriter means that it is Stephan Sulke's songs that do something to you.

And that on this day in Bochum. The last evening of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. The eve of October 7, the day on which the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust was carried out a year ago, a murder of unimaginable bestiality. Stephan Sulke comes from a Jewish family, his parents escaped the Nazis from Fasanenstraße in Berlin to faraway Shanghai. He was born there, in exile, in 1943; he knows that Hamas included him. And wonders about the reaction of the local cultural scene: "German artists (not all, but almost)," he wrote on his Facebook page in October 2023, "show a pathetic cowardice and a greasy opportunism. Guys, I know how most of you think. Why so quiet?"

The question persists. Why so quiet. "I personally stand openly with Israel and with all Jews worldwide," Sulke went on to write, "But I may not be an artist. The end."

A bitter word. But not an end. The evening in Bochum shows the Stephan Sulke to whom so many, including many artists, owe so much. Songs that flirt with you throughout your life, Sulke was always someone who didn't make himself mean, he grew up multilingual in Switzerland, in between one would say unctuously today (and he certainly never did). At 14, he bought a guitar with the money he had saved up, taught himself chords, learned the piano and began to compose. In 1963, his first single was released in France and he immediately won the Grand Prix du Premier Disque with "Mon Tourne-Disque", presented to him by none other than Maurice Chevalier, the great entertainer and grand seigneur of chanson. Sulke accepts the prize, it's fitting.

He then goes to the USA for a while, gets to know the music business, back in Switzerland he sets up a recording studio, studies on the side, and in 1976 "STEPHAN SULKE" is released with the wonderfully beautiful, wondrously sad "Lottchen, weißt du noch". Sulke is 33 when he receives the award for best "Young Artist of the Year". While others were enjoying great success with his songs, his "Ich Hab' Dich Bloß Geliebt", for example, was interpreted by Herbert Grönemeyer on the '83 album.

A year earlier, in 1982, "Uschi" had been released, Sulke's song sounds intrusively harmless, the lyrics are of the finest toxicity, "Uschi" occupies top positions in the German-language charts. Other of his songs create a community that rallies around him, including "Tom" and "Der Mann aus Russland", a strangely timeless song, long since overtaken by reality and possibly ahead of it. In 1989, Sulke turned his back on the music industry.

And returns ten years later as if out of nowhere. "The absence of nothing"? None of that, new songs, new albums, one called "Liebe ist nichts für Anfänger" (Love is not for beginners), songs by Stephan Sulke are just as little. They all bear the Sulke hallmarks: a Swabian, purring view of world events from an eminently private perspective. "My music", he says, "has always been a mixture of sarcasm, melancholy and a bit of silliness".

And this mixture on this evening? The last day of the Jewish New Year, which marks the first anniversary of 10/7, the commemoration of the more than 1200 innocent civilians slaughtered by Hamas?

Yes, Stephan Sulke sings on this evening. His sarcasm, his melancholy, his silliness are more valuable than ever. Why so quiet?

Sulke sings.

Entry 18 o'clock.