"Mutter" (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

for "mother") is a power ballad by German

Neue Deutsche Härte Neue Deutsche Härte (; "new German hardness"), sometimes abbreviated as NDH, is a subgenre of rock music that developed in Germany and Austria during the early-to-mid 1990s and during the early 2000s. Alluding to the style of Neue Deutsche Well ...

band

Rammstein Rammstein (, "ramming stone") is a German Neue Deutsche Härte band formed in Berlin in 1994. The band's lineup—consisting of lead vocalist Till Lindemann, lead guitarist Richard Kruspe, rhythm guitarist Paul Landers, bassist Oliver Riedel, ...

, released as the fourth single from the album of the same name. The single release includes "5/4", a song that is instrumental except for a Speak & Spell dialogue sample that was played as the intro for live shows since 2000, but wasn't released until 2002.

Overview

The song was confirmed by frontman

Till Lindemann Till Lindemann (; born 4 January 1963) is a German singer, songwriter and poet. He is best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of Neue Deutsche Härte band Rammstein and solo project Lindemann. Rammstein has sold over 25 million records w ...

and guitarist

Richard Kruspe Richard Kruspe (born Sven Kruspe; 24 June 1967) is a German musician. He is the lead guitarist of the Neue Deutsche Härte band Rammstein, as well as the lead singer and lead guitarist of the US-based industrial metal band Emigrate. Early life ...

to be a reference to their unhappy childhood relationships with their own mothers. The lyrics tell the story of a child not born from a womb but in an experiment, thus having no true father or mother. The lyrics describe his plan to kill both the mother "who never gave birth to him" and then himself. However, he fails to kill himself, instead ending up mutilated and no better off than before. The child begs and prays for strength, but his dead mother does not answer. The narrative of the song is similar to

Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic fiction, Gothic novel ''Frankenstein, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an History of scie ...

's ''

Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ex ...

'', in that the character takes revenge for his misfortunes on his "parent" but ends up no different from before the "parent" died.

Music video

The video for Mutter follows the story of the song, in which Lindemann portrays a monstrous character who kills his mother and then dumps her body in a river before ending up locked in an underground cage. Lindemann has a bald head and is clad in rags for this role, but also portrays a well-dressed character with long hair who is seen rowing a boat in a swamp.

Live performances

The song debuted in its demo form during an April 2000 concert exclusively for members of the official fan club. The only difference between the demo version and the final release was that the demo version was less orchestrated. During the ''Mutter'' tour, it was played at every concert and played in select concerts in the Pledge of Allegiances tour in North America. The song then disappeared from Rammstein concerts until 2011, and has been a staple of their live shows since.

Track listing

# Mutter (Radio Edit) - 3:40 # Mutter (

Vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

Mix) - 4:32 # 5/4 - 5:30 # Mutter (Sono's Inkubator Mix) - 7:22 The 2-track (card sleeve) edition included "Mutter (Radio Edit)" and "5/4". It was originally planned to include a Remix by Arnaud Rebotini (Mutter Zend Avesta Mix) in the tracklist. The promo single does not include track 5/4.

Charts

References

{{Authority control Songs about mothers Songs about monsters 2002 singles Rammstein songs Songs written by Richard Z. Kruspe Songs written by Paul Landers Songs written by Till Lindemann Songs written by Christian Lorenz Songs written by Oliver Riedel Songs written by Christoph Schneider