11. Lidl-Girl
Lyrics: Frank Apunkt Schneider, Richard Wientzek
Music: Richard Wientzek, Matthias Linzmayer
Richard Wientzek: voc, guit, keyb, tamb
Matthias Linzmayer: bass, drumbox, voc
Rec. & Prod.: Matthias Linzmayer at Eyeball Spaghetti 2007
Additional Programming, Edit, Prod. & Mix: Scratch Dee at audible Productions 2008 (www.scratchdee.de)


What a drag – if this CD had been released a little earlier in 2008 chances were that every stupid German talk show would have played it and we’d have made a little money out of it. (Or should we say: lucky bastards, we are): the ill-reputed supermarket chain Lidl was monitoring its employees by cameras and detectives recording how often they would go to the toilet, with whom they have private relations etc. A huge scandal followed as if monitoring staff was not a common practise that has been used in capitalist organisations as long as they’ve existed.
But this is not about working conditions getting worse at places like Lidl. It’s our corporate anthem for the precarious and freelancing people of cultural work. We are all familiar with the occasional begrudging of people who work jobs at stores. Leaving our dull and brutal home jobs to get some coffee or a fresh ink cartridge, we enviously observe them sitting at their cash desks scanning barcodes. Brainlessly! And we start dreaming about doing something as blunt as that for just one day. Never do these nine-to-fivers get calls from stupid curators who tell you they would need the title for your exhibition tomorrow morning. Little do they know about your to-do-doom. Never will they have to do a song about envying them until tomorrow morning (and it’s half past five p.m. already). After the shop closes they’re allowed to watch “Starmania” or “Grey’s Anatomy”. While we are still sitting here working on these pressing CD booklet notes. We’d love your random discounter Hitler telling us what to do. But in the process of creative work you’ve got to be your own Hitler.
This is no satire or parody or criticism or whatever bullshit standards there are to keep us from thinking. It’s not a mocking song about some non-empathetic asshole. It’s a song about you and me being made such an asshole, my friend. So just enjoy it.
“Lidl-Girl” is our own version of “Billa-Girl” which appeared (with different composition) in a libretto (“Stell dich ein. Eine Kantate zur Arbeit”) we had written for Gegenstimmen dealing with work in a late capitalist society. Gegenstimmen are an amateur choir that we first worked together with in 2005 for Miki Malör's play “Nationalhymnen”.


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