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Lena who? A group of
university students have remade Eurovision's winning song into an
unofficial World Cup football anthem. But what started as a joke, has
resulted in a cult hit -- and a record contract.
A prank video by university students in Germany has brought two of the
country's recent obsessions together. But now, what started as a prank has
ended in a recording contract with one of the world's largest
entertainment companies and looks set to become a big hit in the next few
weeks.
Inspired by Germany's victory in the Eurovision song contest in late May,
the students, from the town of Münster, performed a parody of the
winning song "Satellite," performed by Lena
Meyer-Landrut. But the group changed the lyrics of the catchy
pop song into an homage to the German national football team, now
competing the the World Cup in South Africa. Instead of "Love, oh,
Love," the refrain became "Schland, oh, Schland" --
football shorthand for Deutschland (Germany).
The idea of making the Eurovision hit song World Cup-friendly came from
student Christian Landgraf. He changed the lyrics and recorded the new
version with his brother Matthias and several friends.
Two
days later, they made a video to accompany the music. One of the students
dressed up as Lena, complete with a brunette wig and danced around in a Münster
park, the extras bedecked in red, gold and black scarves and the national
football team's shirts. The entire video was shot in under an hour. The
group, which began calling itself Uwu Lena, created a web
page and the video was posted on YouTube last Thursday.
More
than Half Million Hits in Under a Week
The video quickly became what German media have already described as a
"cult football hymn." Within less than a week, it had been
viewed more than half a million times.
But the video attracted some unwanted attention as well. Before long, the
video was removed by music company EMI, which owns the rights to the
composition. It considered "Schland Oh Schland" an infringement
on the original song's copyright.
Still, there's no such thing as bad publicity. German television
personality Stefan Raab, the mastermind behind this year's Eurovision win,
became involved. On the website of his production company, TV Total, it
was reported that Raab liked the song: "I think it's super and I
would like it if the boys got a record contract," Raab said. Rumors
also spread on the Internet suggesting that Raab might have been behind
the prank from the beginning because his company had trademarked the
phrase "Schland Oh Schland" as far back as 2005. Even Lena
herself appeared to be a fan of the parody, posting a comment on her
Twitter feed saying she thought the song was "really cool."
Prank
Song Results in Recording Contract
Universal Music, Lena's label, soon stepped in to express interest in
recording the song. The lyrics were translated for the original
songwriters -- John Gordon from Denmark and American Julie Frost (the pair
has written for artists such as Rihanna and Mariah Carey) -- and the
rights were eventually cleared with EMI.
"We came to an agreement yesterday evening," Ulf Switalksi, Uwu
Lena's manager, told SPIEGEL ONLINE on Tuesday. "The boys have been
celebrating with pizza and beer. We are finalizing the contracts this
afternoon and the song will be released online officially on Friday."
The students themselves have been surprised by the attention their hit has
received. "How crazy is this? We still cannot believe how much
everyone likes this song," they wrote on their Facebook page.
After Germany's solid win against a floundering Australian team, hopes are
high that the side in South Africa might produce the second "German
miracle" of the year. Lena Meyer-Landrut's win at the Eurovision,
after 28 years of losing, has been described as the first "German
miracle" of 2010.
And as to whether the merry band of students might become wealthy rock
stars after the release of their song, manager Switalski is not so
certain. "I don't think they will get rich off this," he told
SPIEGEL ONLINE. "Maybe if it became an international hit? But really
this is just for Germany. And anyway," he wisely noted, "nobody
really gets rich from making music these days."
By
Cathrin Schaer
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