Müssen nur wollen

I also do think that we can accomplish anything, just like awesomely trained monkeys, as long as we want something enough. If that's not a rallying call to go out and do something with oneself, I don't know what is.

Judith once said in an interview that you can see this song from different views. She said that she means it in an sarcastic way...society tells us, that we just want to do it, and that it's easy if we try hard enough...but sometimes it just isn't that way, sometimes you don't want to try again and again, you want to give up....from this point of view, the song fits perfectly on their album "die reklamation"

Some sarcasm is rather obvious (who out there really wants to emulate an awesomely trained monkey?) some is not (my own comment on the matter, apparently) I suppose ;-)

i like the way you can interpret the phrase "wir müssen nur wollen" either as "we just have to want something enough (to achieve it)" or as "the only thing we're really forced to do is to want to do something." i think it's about the empty promises of "self-actualization" in modern society, maybe of consumerism, of believing that achieving big dreams is the only purpose of life, that individuals control their own destinies completely - and that we always have to want more than we have. all this of course without thinking about how meaningful the goals we're trying to achieve really are.

Holofernes may not say it in order to not upset people, but i'm rather sure this is very ambivalent towards "working yourself up".

It's about the way we're always told "you can do it if you want it" while at the same time we are obligated to only want certain things. The way every-time we fail, all responsibility is pointed towards us: "You didn't try hard enough".

"You can achieve everything if you try hard enough" may be motivating at first glance. It becomes downright depressing if you fail often enough.

The way we are supposed to "always give our best at everything". We are so focused on "getting ahead", that we don't have time to think about what we really want. And end up with an I-pod. Everything becomes a chore if your always busy thinking "i can do better". Even things you're good at and love to do.

I think this song is wonderful, because it brings up an important issue without lecturing people: In the process of optimizing ourselves, even relaxing, leisure becomes an obligation - poking your nose suddenly needs to be efficient.

I am personally convinced this is the major cause of the decreasing mental-health. We loose our humanity, our talent, our intellect, if we keep exploiting ourselves.

Yeah, maybe you can "work your way up" and become bitter through the hardship and cynical towards everybody who didn't make it. But do you want that? Isn't there a better way to change things?