Trans Europa Express · SoR Magazine

A train as a song

In 1977 Kraftwerk released the album Trans Europa Express. The title track is about a train. Not just any train: the Trans Europ Express, TEE for short, was a network of fast luxury trains that from 1957 linked major cities in Western Europe. Only first-class passengers travelled on it. There was a restaurant on board, and customs and passport checks took place en route, so the journey did not stop at the border. Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, Cologne, Milan, Zürich and Vienna were suddenly only a few hours apart.

The Rheingold, one of the best-known TEE trains, at Koblenz station in 1985.

The lyrics of the song are short. Only a few sentences appear, and they keep coming back. Even so, there is a lot in them. This piece goes through the song from beginning to end. Play the fragment below and read along.

**Kraftwerk**Trans Europa Express · 1977
First listen only to the rhythm: metal on metal, like the wheels of a train over the joints in the rails. Then comes the melody, low and solemn, and only after a while the voices.

The sound: music that travels

Before a single word is sung, you already hear what the song is about. The rhythm is hard and mechanical, a fixed pattern of beats that never changes, like the clatter of a train. Kraftwerk made the sounds with synthesizers and electronic drums, not with recordings of a real train. Yet you hear the movement. Later in the song a shrieking sound glides downwards, like a train braking or a whistle in the distance.

The melody is simple and slow. It is repeated, just like the rhythm. There is no chorus building towards something and no solo. The song does not go somewhere, it is on its way. That is the idea of the whole album: the journey itself is the goal.

The lyrics, line by line

The first sentences are about the journey itself: rivers, parks, palaces and hotels passing by, and a Europe that is endless. It is a list of what you see through the window. There is no story, no main character and no feeling being explained. You sit in the train and look.

That word endless matters. In 1977 Europe was not endless. It was split in two by a wall and an Iron Curtain, and Germany itself was a divided country. The TEE ran only in the west. Kraftwerk sings about a Europe without borders, but at that time it existed only for those who lived on the right side. You can read the song as a dream, or as a wish.

Europe endless.Kraftwerk, Europa Endlos, on the same album

Then comes the most famous line. The singer rides from station to station, back to Düsseldorf, and meets Iggy Pop and David Bowie there. That is a wink. Station to Station was the title of the album Bowie had made a year earlier. Bowie and Iggy Pop were big fans of Kraftwerk, and the musicians knew each other. So this song contains a greeting from Düsseldorf to Berlin.

Then the journey continues: a meeting in Paris, back on the train the next morning, and in Vienna a café late in the evening. The life of a modern European is a series of cities, cafés and stations, and between them the rhythm of the rails.

A song in two languages

Kraftwerk recorded the album in two versions: one with German and one with English lyrics. In the song itself the name of the train is repeated again and again, like an announcement on the platform. It sounds almost the way a station announcer would say it. A German band sings about a European train, for an audience in every country: language should not be a border.

That was exactly what Kraftwerk wanted. After the war, German was for many people in Europe the language of the occupier. Kraftwerk turned it into the language of the future, cool and matter-of-fact, without homesickness.

What the song means

Trans Europa Express is about a train, but also about an idea of Europe: modern, connected, calm and prosperous. After a century with two world wars you could once again ride from Düsseldorf to Paris with a cup of coffee in your hand. Kraftwerk thought that was worth singing about.

The song is also a self-portrait. Kraftwerk saw itself as a band that played neither American rock nor German Schlager, but European music. A train was the perfect image for that: a machine that brings people together.

And the song travelled itself. Five years later the melody sounded in the Bronx, in Planet Rock by Afrika Bambaataa. The train from Düsseldorf had arrived in New York, and then in Detroit. Read more about that in the story Van Berlijn naar Detroit.

Listen for yourself

Play the song once more and pay attention to three things. When does something change in the rhythm, and when does it not? Which sounds remind you of a real train? And what feeling does it give you: calm, excitement or something chilly? There is no right answer. Kraftwerk left the song open on purpose, like a landscape that slides past.