Mey has returned – rapper Haftbefehl recommends a singer-songwriter to his young fans.

Reinhard Mey is firmly anchored in the collective memory of older generations in Germany as the mischievous, lighthearted, and humorous luthier, the man who delved into the depths of our souls "above the clouds." In the collective memory of today's teens and twenty-somethings, the now 82-year-old has likely simply not been present until now.

That's changing now with the Netflix documentary "Babo – The Haftbefehl Story" by directing duo Juan Moreno and Sinan Sevinç, which tells the story of rapper Haftbefehl, his fame, and its downsides. The Offenbach native, whose real name is Aykut Anhan, is considered one of the most powerful voices in German-language hip-hop.

And he apparently has a broad taste in music that extends beyond his own genre. For example, he loves the song "In meinem Garten" by Reinhard Mey, a track from his album "Aus meinem Tagebuch," which was released in 1970. And he sings it, too.

And that's in one of the most moving moments of this disarmingly honest musician portrait. Anhan first shows the film crew an enlarged picture of himself with his two children ("my son Noah and my baby Aliyah - it's her birthday today").

Anhan reaches for the picture as if he could touch the people depicted in it. And then he points to himself: "And this is the dirt," he says. "The dirt is on the left. Me, dirt. But he loves his children."

The next moment, Anhan is under the hood of his hoodie, searching for a song on his phone, speaking it out in a hoarse voice, more of a hum: "In my garden, in my garden, a raven is building its nest." Then he finds the song. "Here, Reinhard Mey. Do you know Reinhard Mey?" And then he presses "Play" and you hear the song, hear Reinhard Mey, the man with the fine, sandy quality in his gentle voice: "In my garden, / in my garden, / the larkspur bloomed blue..."

Aykut sings along. You can feel the goosebumps coming over him. The raven then built a nest "in my roof." Anhan remembered the line wrong and smiles briefly. "Brutal song, man, wow!" he says. "Intense!" And when Mey then sings about love – "and it took its place in my life" – Haftbefehl wipes his eyes.

Things aren't all good with his family, as became clear during the course of "Babo – The Haftbefehl Story". His image and his persona became harder to separate, and Anhan's drug addiction became self-destructive.

The documentary is number 1 on Netflix's movie charts. And Reinhard Mey's "In meinem Garten" is at number 13 on Spotify's charts on Tuesday, November 4th, at 2:30 pm.

Rediscovery of one of the most famous singers in the Federal Republic of Germany, whom virtually every German knew in the seventies, and who, as Frédérik Mey (after his second given name Friedrich), also had a career in France.

The songs of the Berlin native were full of sophisticated humor. Some became hits in the charts, and many others beyond: "Ich bin Klempner von Beruf" (I'm a plumber by trade), "Die heiße Schlacht am kalten Büffet" (The hot battle at the cold buffet), "Der Mörder ist immer der Gärtner" (The murderer is always the gardener), "Es gibt Tage, da wünscht' ich, ich wär' mein Hund" (There are days when I wish I were my dog) or "Ein Antrag auf Erteilung eines Antragsformulars" (An application for the issuance of an application form) are classics of German pop music.

But there were also the contemplative pieces, like "Über den Wolken" (Above the Clouds), which director Christian Petzold considers "the only good German folk song." Or "In meinem Garten" (In My Garden), a song about the inferiority of cultivation and the transience of happiness. The lovestruck gardener's freshly watered delphinium, growing in the scree where everything else withered, has the garden raked around it. "But the flower withered in anger."

And for the raven, who got along well with the holes in the roof, the singer now lays fresh tiles so that he would be comfortable, but "the raven never returned to his nest under the roof." These are the verses that are not sung in the "Babo" film.

The final lines, in which the sorrowful gardener also fears for his beloved, hint at why Aykut Anhan was so moved: “Since that day when the raven / spurned his protected nest, / since I carried the flower to its grave, / no longer have my peace / I pray that she too will not leave me. / That she will not leave. / If she were to leave, my life would also be gone, and that is no empty word, / what I possessed I have given away, / my soul and my life / and she would take them with her.”

It is the fear at the moment when he wanted to touch his children in the photograph.

It's Mey week this autumn. It seems the bard, who continues to make music and perform, is truly in the midst of a comeback. On September 18th (as a physical release on October 31st), Universal Music released the duet single "Eins ist geblieben" (One Has Remained), a duet between Reinhard Mey and the Oberhausen punk band Emscherkurve 77.

The song begins as a punk blast, then after two minutes Mey takes over with an acoustic guitar: "No clue about life / made many mistakes / but one thing has remained, / is what we love / thank heavens." Then everyone joins in for a punk riff. And Mey delivers the final line completely unaccompanied: "Forever a punk."

This is hinted at not only by the leather jacket on the cover, but also by his nonconformity... in a way. There are several vinyl variations – black, splatter, swir. A limited edition on colored vinyl, red and dark yellow, will also be released in December. They're "swifting" a bit for the collectors.

There are long-standing connections to punk. "Our sons brought it home," Mey writes on his website. The song "Unter den Wolken" (Under the Clouds) from the Toten Hosen album "Laune der Natur" (Whim of Nature), for example: "It's an allusion to 'Über den Wolken' (Above the Clouds) and constantly refers to it," said Hosen singer Campino in a 2017 RND interview.

“Reinhard Mey’s song was something like the unofficial anthem of West Germany, and perhaps also East Germany, back in the seventies,” said the Hosen singer. “A dream of a life without walls and borders, of being free from the confines of the two states that made us feel so oppressed.”

And hip-hop had also discovered Mey before the premiere of the "Babo" documentary. Rapper Gerrit Falius, aka Disarstar, released his album "Hamburger Aufstand" (Hamburg Uprising) in September, which includes the song "Meine Söhne geb' ich nicht" (I won't give up my sons), a contribution from the Hamburg native to the current conscription debate. The song references Mey's anti-war classic "Nein, meine Söhne geb' ich nicht" (No, I won't give up my sons).

“We only have this one, short life,” sang Mey in 1986. “I swear it and tell you straight to your face: / They won’t give it up for your delusion. / No, I won’t give up my sons.” And Disarstar 2025: “Everyone only has one life, / even if the sky above me breaks: / No, I won’t give up my sons.”

Haftbefehl reported on his collaboration with Mey in his Instagram story. "They hesitated to participate in my documentary – understandable, because what they had previously found about me online probably aroused more doubt than trust." He was all the more pleased that Mey wrote to him personally after seeing the documentary, "giving me something that goes deeper than mere approval – a quiet, honest confirmation."

Mey expressed the idea that one should "truly understand the person behind the image, the artist behind the headlines, before passing judgment."

Reinhard Mey himself is currently difficult to reach by phone. According to his record label, Universal, he is in the studio recording new music. And he doesn't want to be disturbed by interviews. A new album?

It would be his 30th studio album, the successor to "Nach Haus" from 2024, on which he sang something in the song "Nichts ist für immer" that Aykut Anhan might also like: "The summit is so much harder to hold onto than to climb / not at all easy to settle in once you've arrived at the goal."

Elyas M'Barek's Netflix documentary

Discovery after 32 years

Incidentally, the documentary has also had an impact on Haftbefehl's music. His songs currently occupy positions 4 to 7 and 10 to 12 in the Spotify Top 20. Both artists are still awaiting entry into the official German singles charts.