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Cafe Einstein · May 11, 06:15 AM

I’ve blurbed about this place before, for example, this:

Heine, Vocoders · Jun 6, 09:04 PM

I (all too?) often roll out this quote:

Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht,
Dann bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht,
Ich kann nicht mehr die Augen schließen,
Und meine heißen Tränen fließen

from Heinrich Heine, written while resident in Paris, where he articulates a deep homesickness. These words, written before all the events in 20th century history that gave them a new kind of political gravitas, were a personal nostalgia, and possibly not intended with the weight with which they are often imbued now. I first came across them in the NME, quoted by, I think, Chris Bohn (or Biba Kopf as he became at one stage) in a special on German bands. I was in Berlin at the time, Cafe Einstein specifically, long before it became a chain, and do note that paper cups would never have been allowed in the original venue. February, strong coffee, a warm seat near the window, weak sun glimpsed through the tree (linden/lime?) branches of Kurfurstenstrasse. A good moment.

And this Einstein story is true, but what is really true is that I met a girl there, when I was ‘the pianist’. A red haired German who invited me to share her table along with her French friend who’d spent time imprisoned in the DDR. It turned out they both worked at Haus am Checkpoint Charley. Irene is, I think, still in Berlin, a feminist writer/scholar. I fell into a ‘gulph of love’ as Yeats has it, almost immediately, and she fed this and flattered me, without realising I suspect. It didn’t work out, she was both sweet and bitter in the giving me back, and I mourned her. At this time Einstein sugar cubes featured astrological signs, and when I ventured back into the cafe after the non event that broke, I found one on the plate next to me, adorned with a Scorpio symbol. Her sign. From there I concocted this lyric, in a detached ironic fashion seeking to make a pop song of knowing triteness and insincerity, as an interlude within a gallery soundscape I had been commissioned to create. I don’t think I really succeeded but the song has stayed with me. Quirky and supple it’s adapted well to various situations. I’d like to re imagine it one final time though, and put it to rest. Here’s the original lyric, as it lies in the original notebook (although it’s clear this is an already organised version)

So this is goodbye
The cafe lights are low
Please stand to leave
But please leave easy
There’s nothing else to say
I took the voyeur chair
The last time to share

The next three lines were birthed one morning in another cafe entirely. Drinking early morning coffee I watched a very young courting couple, him with barely a moustache on his face, arrive on a motorbike and buy them both ice cream before revving off into the warm spring sunshine…

Children came on motorbikes
Department store dreams rode behind
So lovely on all the roads of this land
This is goodbye

You on the sugar
Look across at me
You tell me it’s over
And I am free
Oh stand to go
Please please leave it easy
There’s nothing else I can say

So this is in the pile of this ‘big project’ I am now working on, aiming at an autumn release, with live support (a band) and publicity and so forth.

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