Wo Sind Die Elefanten?
The title track to Leon's 1991 CD began life in the mid-1980s during a stay in East Berlin, when Leon struggled to master the German language. In 1986 he'd travelled to there for a political song festival, for which he'd taken a mini course in the language - which is how he came to recall the phrase "Wo Sind Die Elefanten?" ("Where are the Elephants?"), when urged to interact with the East Germans.
In the event he did not finish it and it lay dormant until circa 1990, when the Eastern Bloc collapsed, and the "Communist" government was overthrown. As the text of the song shows, Leon was split over the collapse of these regimes, which no matter how dictatorial, were at least concrete examples of societies not controlled by market forces.
In the event he did not finish it and it lay dormant until circa 1990, when the Eastern Bloc collapsed, and the "Communist" government was overthrown. As the text of the song shows, Leon was split over the collapse of these regimes, which no matter how dictatorial, were at least concrete examples of societies not controlled by market forces.
"I started writing this song after spending one freezing February week at the East Berlin Political Song Festival in 1986 - an event singularly lacking in what I would call politics - but couldn't finish it till some years later, needing to see first, perhaps, the end of the story of this experiment in 'actually existing socialism'... a dream, however falsely based, has been lost and there is something terribly sad about that." - LR (sleevenotes to Wo Sind Die Elefanten?, 1991 )
"There were mixed emotions. No great sorrow to see those authoritarian regimes go but sadness that what also seemed to have gone was the dream that had illuminated my formative years in a Communist family: the vision of a more just and humane society." - LR (Turning Silence Into Song (songbook), p1)
“In 1987 I was invited to a political song festival in East Berlin... I’d tried learning some German from a BBC Kontakte course but racking my memory for useful phrases, the one that kept coming to mind was ‘Wo sind die elefanten?’, not very useful unless you want to visit the zoo. But maybe it could be the beginning of a song. I tried sketching it out but couldn’t finish it until I’d seen the end of the story.” - LR (sleevenotes to The World Turned Upside Down (CD box set), p45)
“In 1987 I was invited to a political song festival in East Berlin... I’d tried learning some German from a BBC Kontakte course but racking my memory for useful phrases, the one that kept coming to mind was ‘Wo sind die elefanten?’, not very useful unless you want to visit the zoo. But maybe it could be the beginning of a song. I tried sketching it out but couldn’t finish it until I’d seen the end of the story.” - LR (sleevenotes to The World Turned Upside Down (CD box set), p45)
Recordings
Version 1 (1991)