2023-04-27 08:19:54
The singer-songwriter Rainald Grebe is seriously ill. In the state representation of Baden-Württemberg he speaks taciturnly about his life. He only thrives on the piano.
Rainald GrebeAlessandro DeMatteis
Rainald Grebe sits calmly at a desk in the state representation of Baden-Württemberg in Berlin. The artist and songwriter, who has been suffering from the autoimmune disease vasculitis that regularly causes strokes since 2014, struggles through life singing and playing the piano and writing. It is the art that drives him to keep going, not to give up, to get up in the morning. On this Wednesday evening in the state representation, you can feel that it is not easy for Grebe to accept the illness that makes him older than he is. Destiny is a lousy traitor.
That evening, the Cosmic Radio Show will be produced live at the state representation. The moderators have Grebe as guests and the writer Lena Gorelik. It’s about new beginnings and goodbyes. DJ and presenter Andreas Vogel as well as presenter and speaker Aliki Schäfer will lead through the show.
Things flow with the writer Gorelik, she willingly answers all questions, tells how she fled from Russia to Germany as a quota refugee at the age of 11, in what form she addresses arrival, new beginnings, but also leaving behind in her literature. She also describes in detail how problematic the Russian language has become for her because of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. That she spoke very quietly when her mother called her on the train. After such a Russian phone call, she would like to call the train that she is against Putin – to apologize for her cultural background and the language.
Rainald Grebe is back
At Grebe the evening breaks in a different direction. He doesn’t really want to answer the moderators’ questions, shys away, is monosyllabic, downright dismissive and stubborn. In his answers, as in his semi-fictional autobiography “Rheinland Grapefruit”, he plays with various forms of truth and lies when it comes to questions about his person goes
But in the tragic sentences about his illness, the whole brutality of life glows, Grebe’s fear, the anger at the injustice that he had to go to rehab at the age of 50, that he had gotten his illness under control, but didn’t know how long it would go on like this. Just a few months ago he drove through the corridors of a clinic with a walker. Now he can go. That changes your attitude towards life. According to Grebe, he used to walk across the street and think of all sorts of things. Now he is crossing the street and only miraculously thinks of one thing: “I am crossing the street.”
Only when Grebe sits down at the piano does a lot of hope shine through. His singing voice doesn’t sound quite as firm as it used to, not quite as determined, but robust and robust. His runs on the piano are a bit more staccato-like, but the will to live and to suffer is there, it is part of the art. Grebe plays two new songs and then the autobiographical piece “Krümel”, which tells the story of a 17-year-old boy who grows up near Cologne (like Grebe) in a sheltered middle-class environment. But at 17 there is already this world-weariness and the anger and fear of the abyss that turns mere songs into real compositions. “crumbs, crumbs, what’s the matter with you? / The suffering of the world is on your shoulders / Ah crumbs, crumbs, you won’t be here much longer / Come with me, it’s all so simple.“ Rainald Grebe, he’s back.
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