Sound bites | Music  Floral Swing Decoration with Astroturf Vibes

It’s one of Germany’s most enduring hits. The song Weil ich ein Mädchen bin – released in the mid-nineties by pop duo Lucilectric – continues to have an impact today, as a style icon of the “girlie” phenomenon back then.

Whenever this song from spring 1994 crops up, anyone who was around in the nineties can not only hear the tune in their head – they can visualise it too. The chorus line Weil ich ein Mädchen bin (Because I’m a girl) has become entrenched in people’s memories simply through the power of repetition (an unrelenting 31 times in the single version), but the psychedelic video is also part of the story of one-hit wonder Lucilectric.

Yet for quite a while things aren’t looking good for what would later become such a success. It’s only after a delay and a detour via a radio station in the Netherlands and the charts there that the track finds its way into a popular TV show of the time, Geld oder Liebe, presented by Jürgen von der Lippe. The song goes down well, Weil ich ein Mädchen bin is now on track in Germany too, and that’s where VIVA comes in. Former video jockey and show host Markus Kavka says in a podcast: “The first hit to be created at VIVA was Lucilectric.”
In that respect it’s no wonder that memories of this catchy tune include the image of singer Luci van Org swinging through the gaudy studio set on a swing apparently suspended in mid-air. Her hip-length blonde dreadlocks billow out and the swing ropes appear surrounded by blossom. In amongst all this we glimpse the distorted face of Ralf Goldkind, the other member of the Lucilectric duo, from time to time. The whole thing resembles a surreal nightmare scenario, which predominantly conveys vibes of polystyrene and Astroturf.

But the reason why the song outlives its hit moment is because of its theme: Weil ich ein Mädchen bin is the anthem of the “girlie”, a nineties trend that has a tremendous impact, particularly in Germany. The aforementioned TV channel VIVA, which started up in 1993, plays a part in this too. The “girlie” archetype is given a face for the first time in the shape of presenter Heike Makatsch, and shortly after that the Lucilectric song translates it into the charts. But the origin of the trend is in the USA, where they are more likely to use the term “girl power” – with feminist acts like Bikini Kill or Team Dresch gaining a foothold in the male-dominated music culture. In Germany and Europe the edgy stuff is mostly left by the wayside as the movement tends to be all about the flamboyant, cheeky girlie. A new generation of young women is in the spotlight with the expanding pop culture of the VIVA decade. All of this flickers somewhere between self-empowerment and a male gaze in the context of Lolita mania, between representation and fetishisation. This ambivalence is borne out in the song lyrics: „Was'n das für'n wundervoller Hintern / Der da neben mir am Tresen steht? / Und der Typ, der am Hintern noch mit dran ist / Hat sich grade zu mir umgedreht“ (“Wow, what a cute butt is that? / Standing beside me at the bar / and the bloke attached to the butt / has just turned to look at me”). Sexist realities that all too frequently objectify the female body are flipped around to become an offensive statement. Yet the storyteller remains passive, the line „lass dem Mann den ersten Schritt“ (“Let the man make the first move”) makes it clear that established role models don’t need to be destroyed, they simply need to be practised more confidently. After all, slow progress is still progress.

Today, Luci van Org thinks the song is “still as awesome as ever”, but finds the lyrics antiquated. Incidentally the girlies’ finest hour still lay ahead at that point – two years after Lucilectric’s Mädchen comes the release of Wannabe, the first single by the Spice Girls. The phenomenon reaches dizzying heights and empowers countless young women all over the world. In Germany the Lucilectric duo is still associated with the girlie boom to this day. Whereby the continued career of singer Luci van Org illustrates that the “girl” label in a woman’s life can only apply to a certain stage. So she leaves the role of sassy lass in the past and by the 2000s she is performing under the name Üebermutter, for which she crosses over into the Neue Deutsche Härte metal genre (New German Hardrock or NDH). In 2019 she publishes her novel Vagina Dentata, which takes a fresh look at gender battles – but this time happily leaves out the floral swing decoration and adopts more of a confrontational stance. Are the one-time girlies baring their teeth now? A development that can only be welcomed.


 

February 2024