Fahren fahren fahren auf der Autobahn

My latest assignment from MusicRadar was to look at “Autobahn” by Kraftwerk. My studies of electronic music history have seriously neglected these guys, so it was nice to have a reason to dig into their music.

I could have written another 100,000 words about this song, and about the band generally. One of the things that didn’t make the cut is a music theory idea that this tune illustrates neatly. The idea is that any chord that sustains or repeats long enough starts sounding like the tonic. Listen to “Autobahn” at 18:34. You’ll hear sixteen bars of I-IV-V in A major, with A pedaling in the bass the entire time. Then at 19:00, the chord changes to D, which at first sounds like the IV chord in A. But then it just stays on that chord, and after a while (about eight bars for me), you forget about A major, and the D chord becomes the tonic. I don’t know of a name for this phenomenon, but it’s an important in groove-based and ambient music.

Here are some other things that didn’t make the cut. Autobahn inspired an extremely groovy animated film by Roger Mainwood.

As a kid in the 1980s, I saw and heard many imitations and parodies of Kraftwerk before ever encountering the real thing, starting with the band in Revenge of the Nerds.

Saturday Night Live used a sped-up recording of Kraftwerk’s song Electric Café for the time on Sprockets when we dance.

In The Big Lebowski, the nihilists’ techno-pop band is called Autobahn, and the cover art is an obvious Kraftwerk homage.

My kids loved Kraftwerk when they were little, and find them charmingly weird now. It makes sense; “Autobahn” is like a German version of “The Wheels on the Bus”. The kids like “Europe Endless” even better. Even in weird artsy electronic music, it’s nice to have a tune you can sing along with.