Es Mus Sein

I haven't actually heard this song yet, oh well I worship Rufus but i don't have all his songs, I don't even have any of his albums, I just download his song MP3s. The phrase es mus sein is quite familar to me because it is one of the popular lines in my favorite book in the world "The Unbearable LIghtness of Being" by another god, Milan Kundera. has anyone else read it?

does anyone know where I can find this song?? I've been searching all over for it, and I can't find it anywhere!!!!! let me know..

i've read the unbearable lightness of being. it's my favorite book of all time. "the difficult/heavy resolution" is what "es muss sein" translates to in english. it was first used by beethoven for one of his compositions i do believe. it's a great song.

no wait, i'm wrong sorry.

i was thinking of another phrase in the unbearable lightness of being.

"Der schwer gefasste Entschluss" which means the difficult/heavy resolution in english. It was on the same page as "Es muss sein" was when Tomas was coming back into Prague.

i'm such an idiot sometimes going on about one thing while thinking of another. my deepest apologies everybody.

This song was not released in the US. It was included only on the Japanese edition of a Rufus Wainwright album.

japanese? eep. well, i have it on my CD. it has bonus tracks: es mus sein" and velvet curtain rag. i got mine from a church-ish market... they had alot of great music- rock, pop, ethnic, gay- rufus was in the folk section. i was like "oh my god!" and my friend bought it for me, there and then for x-mas.

For those who may be confused, "Es muss sein" is German. Beethoven used these lyrics as the primary phrase of the last movement of his last quartet. The reason there is an upper-case beta (mu?) in the original instead of the double S (muss) we've all been using in our comments is that Germans use this ? sign in place of the double S. It was incredibly confusing when I first arrived in Germany, but soon became commonplace to the point that seeing a double S was weird to me when I first came back to the US, lol.

I read "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" while I was in Prague last year just after Christmas and it took on a whole different level of meaning because I was able to see everything Kundera talked about and how it ended up being resolved after the fall of Communism. It was easy to see how his work could have been written under those circumstances.

I agree with rufusworshipper in praising Kundera as well as Wainwright. If I had to guess from the context of this song, I would say that it is indeed inspired by Kundera's famous novel. "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" is also referenced in the Bright Eyes song "Tereza and Tomas" from the album "Letting Off the Happiness."

With the "Es muss sein" discussion in "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," Kundera is describing his main character, Tomas, as he returns to Prague after moving to Zurich at Tereza's request to escape the communist oppression. He returns because Tereza returned first out of an inability to live away from her home.

The director of the Swiss hospital at which he works while living in Zurich was a friend of Tomas' who called him daily in Prague after the Russian invasion. This is why it is so hard for Tomas to leave Zurich. He doesn't want to insult his friend, who offered him the ability to leave the oppression of the communist regime. However, this friend and employer thinks that Tereza's move is "hysterical and abhorrent," which Tomas cannot handle, for "Tomas refused to allow anyone an opportunity to think ill of her."

Ergo, Tomas tells his friend that he is leaving and his friend is offended. Tomas' only response is to shrug and say "Es muss sein. Es muss sein," alluding to the Beethoven song. "The allusion was even more pertinent than he had thought because the Swiss doctor was a great music lover. Smiling sincerely, he asked, in the melody of Beethoven's motif, 'Muss es sein?'

"'Ja, es muss sein!' Tomas said again." The entire situation is doubly meaningful for Tomas because Tereza was the one who introduced him to Beethoven and convinced him to buy the record from which he took the line that allowed him to return to her with a clean conscience.

Beethoven used "Der schwer gefasste Entschluss," or "the difficult resolution," to introduce this section of his music. According to Kundera, "The German word 'schwer' means both 'difficult' and 'heavy.'" Hence, "the weighy resolution is at one with the voice of Fate ('Es muss sein!');necessity, weight, and value are three concepts inextricably bound: only necessity is heavy and only what is heavy has value."

This song deals with this concept of that which must be done both despite and due to the fact that it is difficult. Beethoven, Kundera, and Wainwright have all brilliantly incorporated this into their work in ways that are pertinent to their respective audiences. Rufus never ceases to impress me.

It would be incredibly naïve to believe that an eszett (ß) is a "lowercase beta." And mu? That's µ! Not even similar! The eszett, or Scharfes S (Sharp S), originated as a ligature or the letters S and Z. Modernly, however, it is used as a double-S, which, in certain words, replaces the S's. Because of technical restrictions on non-German or Apple keyboards, two S's are often used instead.

I agree, the song is related to Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". Still there are two possible German translations which make sense when you look at the song or the book. The question "Muss es sein?": "Must it be?" or "Is there an evidence for being?" The Answer "Es muss sein.": "It must be." or "There is an evidence for being".