"Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann" (German for "anyhow, anywhere, anytime”) is a 1984 song by

Nena Gabriele Susanne Kerner (born 24 March 1960), better known by her stage name Nena, is a German singer who rose to international fame in 1983 as the lead vocalist of the band Nena (band), Nena with the Neue Deutsche Welle song "99 Luftballons". I ...

written by band members

Jörn-Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen Jörn-Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen (born 10 March 1960) is a German keyboard player, producer and composer. He was the keyboardist of the band Nena and co-wrote their world famous hit "99 Luftballons" as well as another great hit entitled " Irgendwi ...

and Carlo Karges. It was a commercial success in Europe. Released initially as a single, it was included on Nena's 1985 album '' Feuer und Flamme''. Many variations and covers of the song have appeared, including samples and foreign language versions, most notably the English language "Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime". Its various incarnations have charted over a 37-year period and in three different languages. The song regained a certain level of popularity between younger generations when it was featured in

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

's hit German science fiction show's soundtrack

Dark Darkness is the condition resulting from a lack of illumination, or an absence of visible light. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low luminance because the hue-sensitive photoreceptor cells on the retina are ...

Original version

Described by Allmusic as a "towering all-time Nena classic", "Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann" (German for "somehow, somewhere, sometime") is a love song, the singer saying that in the mists of time and space, now is the time for some tenderness "before the night returns". Although she didn't write them herself, Nena has suggested that the hookline ("Give me your hand, I'll build you a sandcastle somehow somewhere sometime") refers to building sandcastles in Potsdamer Square in Berlin during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. Cold War Berlin is where Nena spent the few years immediately before becoming famous, at which time

Potsdamer Platz Potsdamer Platz (, ''Potsdam Square'') is a public square and traffic intersection in the center of Berlin, Germany, lying about south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag building, Reichstag (Bundestag, German Parliament Building), and ...

was a desolate No Man's Land in the shadow of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

. The tender lyric is set to a rumbustious, free-flowing and catchy tune. "Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann" reached on the German chart in 1984. It was the last top-five entry Nena was to have in her homeland for 19 years until in 2003 she reprised the song as the duet "Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime" with

Kim Wilde Kim Wilde (born Kim Smith, 18 November 1960) is an English pop singer. She first gained success in 1981 with her debut single "Kids in America", which peaked at no. 2 in the UK. In 1983, she received the Brit Award for Best British Female solo ...

as part of her 2002 career revival brought about by the triple platinum '' Nena feat. Nena'' album. The song also featured in all three seasons of the 2017-2020

German science fiction thriller series ''

''.

Music video

At the beginning of the music video a garage door opens, Nena emerges and runs through spider webs before finding a car. In the next scene, a group of people are seen removing the vehicle. Nena then appears in a pyramid and awakens a mummy (played by the band's keyboard player, Jörn-Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen) by touching it. A soldier (played by the band's guitarist, Carlo Karges) then joins Nena, trapped in the car. The video then cuts to the band performing the song at a live concert. Next the band's bassist (Jürgen Dehmel) is seen running away from a mechanical dragon before finding a safe spot where Nena joins him. After this, Nena is seen as a samurai but falls into a hole and is rescued by Rolf Brendel, the band's drummer and Nena's then boyfriend. In the remainder of the video, a few excerpts are repeated. The video was shot at a film studio in London and directed by Nick Morris.

Track listings

*7-inch single :A. "Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann" – 4:10 :B. "Ganz oben" (live) – 4:38 *12-inch maxi single :A. "Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann" (special 12″ dance-mix) – 7:15 :B1. "Ganz oben" (live) – 3:53 :B2. "Der Bus is' schon weg" (live) – 2:44

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Jan Delay version

In 1999,

Jan Delay Jan Phillip Eißfeldt (born 25 August 1976), known professionally as Jan Delay, is a German rapper and singer whose stylistic range includes mainly hip hop, reggae, dub and funk. An accomplished solo artist, he became known to the public as ...

with Denyo and Beginner covered "Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann" for the compilation album ''Das gibt's nur einmal'' of the TV project Pop 2000 by ARD and Viva. Just like the original this cover was also successful in Germany. Unlike the original, this version contains a rap verse. The music video was filmed on a beach, starting with Jan Delay with a dog in his arms, and some women. While he performs the song, you can see fish and a couple of women swimming in the water. They also keep a few signs up showing among other things "77" and "Nazis out". At the end of the music video a radio is thrown into the water.

Track listings

*CD single #"Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann" – 5:30 #"B-Seite" – 4:08 *12-inch single :A1. "Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann" – 5:31 :A2. "Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann" (instrumental) – 5:29 :B1. "B-Seite" – 4:09 :B2. "B-Seite" (instrumental) – 4:12

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime

An all-English version of "Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann" titled "Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime" was included on

's 1985 album '' It's All in the Game'' (the English-language version of ''Feuer und Flamme''), but has never been released as a single. In 2002, celebrating twenty years of the beginning of her success in the former Nena band, Nena recorded a new album, '' Nena feat. Nena'', which included a new version of the song, with a much slower tempo and more rock influences. Subsequently, another iteration of the new version was released, this time with the combined English and German lyrics, performed along with English singer

. The video was filmed outside the

London Guildhall Guildhall is a municipal building in the City of London, England. It is off Gresham and Basinghall streets, in the wards of Bassishaw and Cheap. The current building dates from the 15th century; however documentary evidence suggests that a ...

and in and around

Change Alley Exchange Alley or Change Alley is a narrow alleyway connecting shops and coffeehouses in an old neighbourhood of the City of London. It served as a convenient shortcut from the Royal Exchange on Cornhill to the Post Office on Lombard Street ...

, London EC3. It was a commercial success across continental Europe, but was not released in the United Kingdom. Nena and Wilde appeared together several times in 2003 to promote the single on various TV programmes, having first performed the song live during Nena's October 2002 concert in Frankfurt marking the 20th anniversary of her first hit record. Since then they collaborated again in 2006 on the remake of "You Keep Me Hanging On" on Wilde's '' Never Say Never'' album. They subsequently performed "Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime" on a German TV programme marking Nena's 50th birthday in 2010 and at a joint concert in Saasveld, Netherlands, on 13 December 2014.

Track listings

*German CD single #"Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime" (radio version) – 3:42 #"Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime" (new version) – 4:03 *German CD maxi single #"Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime" (radio version) – 3:42 #"Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime" (new version) – 4:03 #"Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann" (new version) – 4:02 #"Nur geträumt" (new version) – 2:54

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Decade-end charts

Other notable recorded versions

*1992: Herbert Grönemeyer *2000:

Max Raabe Max Raabe (born Matthias Otto, 12 December 1962) is a German jazz singer. He is best known as the founder and leader of the Palast Orchester. Career Raabe developed an interest in the sound of German dance and film music of the 1920s and 193 ...

*2000:

The Smurfs ''The Smurfs'' (; ) is a Belgian comic franchise centered on a fictional colony of small, blue, humanoid creatures who live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest. ''The Smurfs'' was created and introduced as a series of comic characters by ...

(Sag mir wie, sag mir wo, sag mir wann) *2001: DJs@Work (Someday) *2003: Otto Waalkes (Hänsel und Gretel) *2003: Guildo Horn *2005: Insania *2006: Komu Vnyz *2008: Adoro (band), Symphonity *2016: Titus Probst *2021: A German/Italian language version entitled "Ci Sarai (Irgendwie)" by Giovanni Zarrella featuring Pietro Lombardi which reached number 76 in the German singles chart *2021: Phil the Beat and ILIRA entitled "Anytime"

Satirical version

In March 2016 the song was used as a base for a satirical song on Turkish president

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician who is the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as the 25th prime minister of Turkey, prime minister from 2003 to 2014 as part of the Jus ...

by the TV magazine ''

extra 3 ''extra 3'' is a weekly political satire show on Television in Germany, German television established in 1976. Produced by public TV broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk, it is aired on NDR Fernsehen and 3sat. Once a month, the show is promoted t ...

'' of German broadcaster NDR titled " Erdowie, Erdowo, Erdogan" ("Erdo-how, Erdo-where, Erdo-when," though the last one is also a play on words, since the German word '' Wahn'' means delusion or craziness). This version of the song sparked a minor diplomatic incident with Turkish government officials reportedly demanding of Germany's ambassador to Turkey that NDR desist from broadcasting it, causing a

Streisand Effect The Streisand effect is an unintended consequences, unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or Censorship, censor information, where the effort instead increases public awareness of the information. The term was coined in 2005 by ...

where the video received millions of views and was subtitled in multiple languages, and indirectly sparked the Böhmermann affair.

References

{{authority control 1984 singles 1984 songs 2003 singles Columbia Records singles Dutch Top 40 number-one singles Electrola singles Songs in German Kim Wilde songs Macaronic songs Music videos directed by Nick Morris Music videos shot in London Nena (band) songs Number-one singles in Austria Songs written by Jörn-Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen Female vocal duets