Unpublished song by Udo Jürgens discovered in the archive
Published: Thursday, Sep 19th 2024, 11:20
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With a delay of almost 40 years, a previously unreleased song by Udo Jürgens is being released.
The romantic piano ballad "Als ich fortging" was discovered while working in the archives of a record label. The single will be released on Friday.
Udo Jürgens would have been 90 years old on September 30. The title of the song is a reminder that the star collapsed during a walk in his adopted home of Switzerland at the end of 2014 and died shortly afterwards.
"We were always searching inside and hoped to find something else that Udo had written," said Udo Jürgens' daughter Jenny Jürgens. The rediscovered song tells of a wistful farewell and at the same time seems like a late, perhaps too late, plea for reconciliation.
Demo recording rearranged
The lyrics were penned by Michael Kunze, who had also contributed the words to Jürgens' hits such as "Griechischer Wein" and "Ich war noch niemals in New York". Jürgens wrote the melody and recorded a demo version, according to his children John and Jenny and the Sony Music label. The song was written in 1985 for the album "Treibjagd", but ultimately did not fit in with the concept of the record and ended up in the archive.
Now drummer and producer Curt Cress has extracted Jürgens' vocals from the demo tape and added a pensive piano part. He laid a broad cloud of strings over it.
Whether you find the soaring violin melody kitschy, retro or true to the style depends on the age of the listener. In any case, it has become a classic Jürgens song.
The new old single will also be released on September 27 as part of a best-of collection entitled "Udo 90".
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