Haus am See [English translation]

Here I was born and I run through the streets

Know every house, every store, and every face

I need to leave; know every pigeon here by name

Thumb’s out, waitin’ for a snazzy lady with speedy wheels

The sun’s blinding, everything flies by

The world behind me gets slowly undersized

Still, the world in front of me is made for me

I know she’s waiting – I’ll go pick her up

Have the day on my side, got a tailwind too

A roadside women’s choir sings for me, they do

I’ll sit back and look into the deep blue

Close my eyes and simply walk straight ahead

And at the end of the lane there’s a house by the lake

Orange tree leaves lay on the way

I have 20 children, my wife is stout ¹

Everybody drops by, no need to go out

I’m looking for a country with unfamiliar lanes

Unfamiliar faces – where no one knows my name

Win everything I play with cards that are marked

Lose everything – God’s left hook is actually quite hard

I dig treasures from the snow and sand

And women rob me of any sense I have

Someday that luck will follow me home

And I’ll come back with both pockets full of gold

I’ll invite the old folks and relatives over

And they all begin to cry tears of joy

We’ll barbecue, the mamas cook, and we slam some schnapps

And party for a week every night

And the moon shines bright on my house by the lake

Orange tree leaves lay on the way

I have 20 children, my wife is stout

Everybody drops by, no need to go out

Here I was born; here I’ll be buried

Have lost my hearing, have a white beard; I sit in the garden

My 100 grandkids play cricket on the lawn

If I think about it, I can actually hardly wait…