Laibach photographed by Luka Kase
Laibach’s cover versions constitute a special category of songs. Since 1987’s Opus Dei (at least), the oracular Slovenian group has been transforming familiar tunes, running them through what Laibach scholar Alexei Monroe calls the “interrogation machine” until their every feature sounds strange and self-contradictory. (If you want to know just how mysterious and multivalent Laibach’s position is, read Monroe’s book.) Laibach has given this treatment to the Beatles and the Stones, recording both the entire Let It Be album and eight versions of “Sympathy for the Devil”; to Andrew Lloyd Webber, cutting the definitive version of his “Jesus Christ Superstar”; to Paul Revere and the Raiders, whose “Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)” Laibach moved to post-Soviet Eastern Europe; to DAF, whose “Alle gegen alle” they rewrote as thrilling Wagnerian pomp; and to the national anthems of fourteen countries, including their own NSK State. The release of a new Laibach cover is a cultural event of great moment.
Laibach photographed by Luka Kase
Postmodern irony is not what’s going on here. Defending his comrades against charges of fascism in 1993, Laibach partisan Slavoj Žižek argued: “the strategy of Laibach [...] ‘frustrates’ the system (the ruling ideology) precisely insofar as it is not its ironic imitation, but represents an over-identification with it.” If this sounds obscure, you can see how it works pretty clearly in Laibach’s version of Queen’s universalist anthem “One Vision.” The original’s promise of a world with one race, one god and one nation sounds innocuous enough—it even sounds kind of fun, the way Freddie Mercury sings it—until you’ve heard Laibach’s cover. Titled “Geburt einer Nation,” or “Birth of a Nation,” Laibach’s interpretation of the song points up not only the unsettling fascist dimension of wishing for a single race on planet Earth, but also the discipline, violence and militant belief it would take to realize any utopian vision on a global scale. It’s as if Laibach, believing the message of “One Vision” more fervently than its author, is acting out impulses which no one else will acknowledge are in the song. Not that they lack a sense of humor; Laibach is fond of saying, “Freddie Mercury died soon after he heard our interpretation of ‘One Vision.’”
In the video you’re about to see, Laibach performs Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean,” the starkest of blues meditations on death, popularized by Bob Dylan on his debut LP. Laibach’s version appears on the special edition of the band’s latest album, Spectre. But why is Tito brushing dust off Churchill’s coat during his 1953 visit to No. 10 Downing Street? Why does a blind quote from a German translation of Aeschylus’ Eumenides flash before our eyes? What is our responsibility to these long-dead factory workers and collectivists who flicker on the screen?
Laibach’s North American tour begins May 11.
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Buy membership in Laibach for $10,000
Become a citizen of Laibach’s global state
See Laibach’s almost terrifying final performance with Tomaž Hostnik, 1982
Laibach cover ‘Warm Leatherette’