“When I was a kid and we were living in Germany, I used to go with my dad when he sang in nightclubs. We couldn’t afford a babysitter every night, so I would go with my parents to the nightclub and stay until two in the morning and fall asleep in a booth. We would drive back to Rammstein Air Force Base, and along that route is this stretch called 40 Mark Strasse, named so by the G.I.s on the base. Because it’s where you can go get a hooker for 40 marks. Which was $20 at the time, in the ‘80s. I mean I had sexual feelings toward girls, but when you’re nine and stuff you don’t. I just knew it was like adult shit that was sketchy. But the girls seemed very young; they looked like high-school-age girls, shivering in bus shelters in short shorts in the cold. The theme in this song is that there’s this young German kid who lives in the apartment building where one of these girls lives and he’s infatuated with her. So off she goes at night, and he doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing.”
“When I was a kid and we were living in Germany, I used to go with my dad when he sang in nightclubs. We couldn’t afford a babysitter every night, so I would go with my parents to the nightclub and stay until two in the morning and fall asleep in a booth. We would drive back to Rammstein Air Force Base, and along that route is this stretch called 40 Mark Strasse, named so by the G.I.s on the base. Because it’s where you can go get a hooker for 40 marks. Which was $20 at the time, in the ‘80s. I mean I had sexual feelings toward girls, but when you’re nine and stuff you don’t. I just knew it was like adult shit that was sketchy. But the girls seemed very young; they looked like high-school-age girls, shivering in bus shelters in short shorts in the cold. The theme in this song is that there’s this young German kid who lives in the apartment building where one of these girls lives and he’s infatuated with her. So off she goes at night, and he doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing.”
http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2012/03/26/magnet-web-exclusive-the-shins-james-mercer-on-the-new-port-of-morrow/