VA - Herr Lehmann - Der Original Soundtrack Aus Dem Film (2003)

When you score a film set in the late 80s today, you naturally want to recapture that specific feeling; the concept of making a mixtape was the guiding principle behind the music selection for *Herr Lehmann*. Loud and quiet, delicate and intrusive—and always ready with a friendly, pointed nudge at just the right moment... If only Herr Lehmann had actually recorded that tape for his lovely cook! Might things have turned out differently? Would she have understood him better if she had listened at home—while cooking, perhaps—to the menacing, stomping, bleak sounds of Fad Gadget’s "Collapsing New People," or burst into tears over Anita Lane’s "Bella Ciao"? Had he recommended the Eels’ "Novocaine for the Soul," would she have grasped why he was content with his life—having achieved, or being destined to achieve, everything within reach—precisely because he knew a happy relationship was impossible? Would anything have changed if she had heard "No Fear" by the Eels? Would she have found him more attractive if he had recorded the Violent Femmes’ "Blister in the Sun" for her? And what about him—had he played her Element of Crime’s "Nervous and Blue," that state hovering between depression and euphoria, a powerful oscillation, a rumbling romantic anthem of the most stripped-down variety?

We do not know, and we never will, for "music meant nothing to him; in his opinion, its only purpose in pubs was to let people shout at each other undisturbed." That was simply the kind of man he was. Yet his world was filled with music. Being able to make that audible made the film adaptation worthwhile in itself. (Mute)