An Ich for an Ich: Ich + Ich and "Vom Selben Stern"

I believed that I was of German heritage for most of my life. I say believed because I now know that I don't have much, if any, German in me despite my last name. While this is another story, I was adopted and my adoptive parents believed I had Irish, English, German and French Canadian heritage. Turns out that they were right on the English and French Canadian, but not so much on the Irish and German.

However, believing this, I was attracted to all things German. My grandmother had gone to Austria twice when I was young, and I loved to look at her pictures of the houses in the Austrian Alps, houses of her relatives that she had established relationships with. I also liked looking at the different style of writing - some of it was in the old German typeset. And as soon as I could, which meant college, I started taking German. I never got over halting German, but was able to put my meager skills to the test when I spent two months backpacking around Europe and spending about a month of that time in and around Germany and Austria. I think I even got to a point where I could understand a lot of what was being said, and keep a slow conversation going. I still also have a soft spot in my heart for Germans over all other European peoples. They are quick to an opinion, very justice-oriented, in many cases are not overly expressive, but when you get to know Germans they are very good friends and will go out of their way for you. I like them a lot, and have missed going over to see my friends in Germany since I haven't been there in a long time. But my German is now very rusty again.

A German tune is our random song for the day. Vom Selben Stern is by the pop duo Ich + Ich (I and I) which is made up of Annette Humpe and Adel Tawil. Ich + Ich was formed in 2002 when Tawil, a former member of the German boy band The Boyz came into the studio to sing a song that Humpe, an icon of the New German Wave of the 1980s with the band Ideal, had written. Their first album together, the eponymous Ich + Ich, came out in 2005 and two songs reached the German Top 10. Their followup album, Vom Selben Stern (2007), reached Number 1. A third album, released in 2009, also reached the top of the German charts and yielded their first Number 1 single. Humpe writes or co-writes most of the duo's songs, and sings lead on some tracks but mostly does backing vocals, leaving most of the lead vocals to Tawil. She has heavy stage fright, so Tawil is the only one of the two on stage with the band when Ich + Ich tours. Tawil is a native German of Egyptian and Tunisian heritage. Vom Selben Stern (From the Same Star) can be found on their 2007 album of the same name.