Rammstein
Sonne

THE REVIEW

Meaning of Sonne: Analysis and Explanation of Rammstein's Song and Video

“Sonne” is one of the most beautiful and famous tracks by Rammstein, a single from the album “Mutter” (2001) that has been a constant presence in all their concert setlists since then.

Originally, the demo of the song was titled “Klitsckho”, later changed to “Der Boxer” (the boxer), a title that certainly better defined the “pugilistic” content of the song and explains the counting with which the song opens, but also present in the chorus; “aus” pronounced at the end of the count is equivalent in German to “out” used to declare the defeat of the boxer left on the mat.

Rammstein had written this piece for Vitali Klitsckho, a former Ukrainian heavyweight champion boxer, specifically to accompany his entry into the ring before matches. However, Klitsckho rejected it, finding it too “hard” (he preferred “You are simply the best” by Tina Turner), and the song was then released under its final title: “Sonne”.

The lyrics are full of references to boxing: the boxer is compared to the sun, the brightest star of all, which will never fall from the sky, just as the boxer will never hit the mat.

The sun shines on the fists, which can burn and blind, painfully striking the opponent's face, causing them to lose balance and fall to the ground, while the world counts aloud up to 10. “The sun will not set tonight” means that the boxer will not go down and will win the match.

A special mention goes to the brilliant music video, which abandons the boxing theme and presents Rammstein in the roles of the seven dwarfs (although they are only six) in a reinterpretation of the famous Grimm brothers' fairy tale (also cited by the band later in “Rosenrot“). In this case, the dwarf miners do not extract diamonds but gold, whose dust is sniffed by a wicked Snow White who, under the effects of her “drug”, beats and mistreats the dwarfs, who still treat her like a queen.

One day, returning from work in the mine, the dwarfs find Snow White unconscious in the tub where she was taking a bath, next to her a syringe full of gold dust: desperate, they believe her dead.

Snow White is placed in the famous glass coffin and carried on their shoulders to the top of a mountain, under a heavy snowfall (another thinly veiled allusion to drugs). But there will be no prince charming for her: the coffin is laid under an apple tree, and the last fruit remaining on it falls and shatters the lid of the coffin: at this point, Snow White awakens, grabs the apple, and irritably removes the funeral veil covering her face. The video closes with Till Lindemann (the band's singer), still in the role of a dwarf, continuing to dig in the mine.