Kompass ohne Norden [English translation]

[Hook] x2

The first few failed

The first few made it

The first few became parents

The first few died

Bob Dylan once gave me this compass without north on it

And so I go lost into an unknown tomorrow

[Part 1]

Just yesterday we were on the senior prom and our principal was talking

About our bright future on this last day of school

The group picture: famous people and losers

The picture froze the time for about a hundredth of a second

The guys wore suits

Some squeezed themselves into those

Felt constrained

Some still wear them up to this day

Still together like the ball of the dandelion

Before the gust came and made us fly high

School fades

Horizont endless

Civilian service elapses

University comes into life

And the young man floats

He floats

He likes to float far too far

Finding new friends at these faculties

So you don't give a fuck on first semester parties

The canteen food is great to lose weight

Lending a truck on a Saturday with your parents to visit Ikea

Seen much of the summer through a window in a library

Instead of living life like in the town next to us

Still not understanding anything

Sex in the dorm room

After first semester parties

Someone's always down for it

[Hook] x2

[Part 2]

Yesterday I met some old friends

Two days back in the hometown

After two hours I had enough of it

Two old teachers and four former classmates come up to me

On the floor in his room lays the cold weapon

His father finds it

It says on a piece of paper: "I went back"

Another one had his first day of work on the field

And then they pull him out of his car wreck

For another month he keeps on living in pictures

Until his bulletin board

Eventually becomes silent

The couple from high school

Which everyone said: "They're going to get married"

Are for about two days

Status: it's complicated

And it becomes more complicated

With every dawn of a new day it becomes more complicated

Someone who doesn't understand this, still not understands it

Can only be someone, who never fell in love

[Hook] x2

[Part 3]

My parents are disappointed in me

And their parents are disappointed in them

And no matter which way you go

With every step you step on mines

My own children are going to disappoint me

And their children will disappoint them

And their grandchildren will disappoint them

We like to complain - a trademark of us Germans

Yesterday I met someone again

Drank a couple of beers with him

The whole evening he was talking through my face

To the mirror behind me

He's very successful now

Talks about expensive watches, high taxes and the gold price

How it rises all the time

About all those women

How every single one of them wants him and he gets them all the time

About the supervisory board, his new expensive car

After the fourth beer he becomes silent in my ears

And I yell at him: "What did you accomplish in life?

You're nothing more than the biggest shark in your small pond

But there's always a bigger, better, stronger, cleverer shark

Be a human and no shark, man!

Between the legs of your secretaries

You won't find the meaning of life, you'll lose your wedding ring

In your curriculum vitae

Without any gaps, that's where your life ends - count on that!"