Sonderzug nach Pankow

In March 1979, Udo Lindenberg said in a West Berlin radio interview that he would like to play a concert for his fans in East Berlin. East German officials recorded the interview and passed it to Kurt Hager, the ruling party's chief ideologist, who noted on it that an appearance was out of the question. Annoyed, Lindenberg answered in early 1983 with a song: new German words set to Glenn Miller's swing classic "Chattanooga Choo Choo". The lyric speaks directly, and mockingly, to East German leader Erich Honecker, painting him as a stiff, two-faced official who is secretly a rocker and listens to Western radio. Pankow, in the title, was the Berlin district once used as shorthand for the East German government. The single came out in West Germany on 2 February 1983, reached number five and spent 21 weeks in the charts. Lindenberg also sent Honecker a cheeky letter asking him to approve a tour. The result was a strange piece of Cold War diplomacy. In October 1983 Lindenberg played his only East German show before the fall of the Wall, at the Palast der Republik, but was asked not to sing this song, and his planned 1984 tour was cancelled. The song was never formally banned, yet several DJs in the East lost their licences for playing it. In 1987 Lindenberg sent Honecker a leather jacket, and after reunification it emerged that Honecker's official car radio was tuned to a West Berlin station. It endures as proof that a pop joke could needle a whole state.