The Lyrical Homoeroticism of Modern Talking (and Dieter Bohlen)

Cheesy, cringe, easily remembered, and catchy are the adjectives that one would describe the lyrics of Modern Talking. Even though Dieter Bohlen had help in the 1980s from the British lyricist, Geff Harrison in translating his lyrics, they were still deemed uncreative. Such uncreativity also continued in his project called Blue System, and the others.

But you now might’ve noticed that the lyrics weren’t necessarily cheesy and catchy. They were indeed uncreative, they didn’t have any exceptional vocabulary, they were extremely repetitive and easy to remember, but they were meaningful. They described a man’s love for another man.

Bohlen does not really make his undying love for Thomas Anders a secret in the lyrics he wrote… It’s almost too obvious for a linguist, and an investigator. And he doesn’t really make it entirely a secret in general either, he’d said once that he is inspired to write songs simply by “looking at the brown eyes of Thomas”.

(Before we start, we advise you to read the full lyrics of all songs, which can be found online: we will only include small fragments) 

The First Album that led to the success of the band in the 80s, had six songs with erotic lyrics. With exceptions making You Can Win If You Want, Diamonds Never Made a Lady and There Is Too Much Blue In Missing You, the lyrics of Modern Talking at the beginning were never, never cheesy. They were incredibly sexual. And at some point, people back then also started to notice how gay the lyrics were, especially in “You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul”. The style and the fashion were out of the question.

The majority of the lyrics Bohlen wrote are written from his perspective. Even if he had help from other people, his feelings in the German language don’t have any significant difference when translated to English. And Bohlen, despite showing off as a macho man and a dominant alpha male with women, seems and looks pretty much submissive, especially when it comes to this dark-haired angel.

Lyrics of the other songs such as “Do You Wanna”, “The Night Is Yours, The Night Is Mine” and especially “Bells of Paris” express more sexual and homoerotic undertones than one might think. Even though “Do You Wanna” was co-written by a woman, Mary Applegate, it’s not really written from the perspective of a woman, but that of a submissive man.

“I need you wrapped around me, like ivy on a vine”, an English metaphor (clear hand of Applegate) of eternal attachment, but could also mean that the act of love could be poisonous, and dangerous. Like a forbidden love. The ivy is a plant that creeps through something and releases poison.

“Now I’m only, only, only holding on to you”, followed by “Begging for more – holding on to me” in the second verse, a clear explanation of the sexual act, both penetrative and oral.

It’s the way it’s sung by Anders and how the message is delivered: like desperation, like longing and begging. It’s way too submissive from the perspective of heterosexual men, especially of macho men who only want to dominate. “Make me, take me”… Bohlen doesn’t write lyrics from the perspective of Thomas, but he definitely saw stars when he heard the way his angel sang the lyrics he wrote.

Even in this chorus “I beg you baby, take your time…”, in The Night Is Yours, The Night Is Mine, it’s also heavily implied the act of sex. The night is still young, so take the time, don’t rush.  It can imply the loss of virginity, to take the time… but only if it was sung from a woman’s perspective, because the loss of innocence is harsher on her. Since it’s sung from a male perspective, and in submissive tones (I beg you baby) it can mean several things, but the main topic here is about homosexual sex.

“Bells of Paris” is also another song with homosexual undertones, with such a verse like this: “My little heart really blew apart, when you touched me, your hold so strong. Now you look in my eyes, and I feel the need”, it cannot get much clearer than that.

And the title itself explains everything. The symbol of Paris, the city of love, being the Eiffel Tower, an erected tower which tourists describe as… the male genital organ. It’s such lyrics as: “When I met you on the Champs Elysee, in the old cafe…” – “I see an angel in your eyes”. – “Your flaming eyes” that put so much emphasis on a gay oral sex happening. The keywords being the old cafe, the angelic eyes… you will realize what we mean in a few seconds.

These extremely erotic lyrics slowly started to fade away but they would casually reappear in the next few albums. Soon enough, romance, melancholia and cuteness replaced intensity and passion.

These lyrics were the only way for Bohlen to tell Thomas that he was very in love and that his intentions were good. Bohlen always liked to make references to “angel” and the “night cafe”, and he does so also in “Bells of Paris”. Of course, Bohlen had lots of help in translating, but his signature lyrics didn’t change in Blue System either.

And “Angel” is how Thomas would always be described, even by Dieter (“he is like an angel flying on clouds”) while the night cafe is the famous cafe where Dieter (probably) met Thomas for the first time. Dieter called it “studio cafe” in his autobiography. (although it’s sure that it was not a studio cafe). Cafes were where they’d mostly meet.  That’s why we’re incredibly convinced the lyrics are homosexual. Phrases such as: angel, night cafe, Chinese eyes etc. give it away instantly.

And the ardent, crazy fans of Modern Talking either did not notice, or they know it deep down but don’t want to admit it.

“Here comes the night, can’t go to bed, I’m sitting here, at the night cafe, my love won’t go away. Never ending dreams of you…” (Song; Just like an angel) – It’s astonishing how more human and less evil Dieter looks when he expresses how much he is in love with Thomas. We wonder what changed…

And Thomas did indeed give so much to Dieter than he actually deserved, and he knows that well, but just for the public, he pretends not to: “God put an angel here on earth, who gave me more than all I’m worth” (Song: Heaven will know). Don’t worry, that angel is not Lucifer!

Dieter has also said many times that he wanted Thomas to see him as a teacher and role model, but behind the scenes, the damn opposite happened: “You’re my teacher I come to school, I love you baby”. (Song: You’re the lady of my heart). And yes, they do fight. Even whether Cheri Cheri Lady should be included in the album, among other things. “Sometimes I’m right, and then a fool…”

It’s much easier to express your love freely in poems and in songs, where nobody can hear your thoughts, as Dieter does. Otherwise, these people will start judging and mocking you.

If loving you is wrong, babe… Oh, I don’t wanna be right (Song: Atlantis is Calling). About that… it depends what you actually mean “love”. Whether it’s violent expression of sex, or the forbidden love.

Some also express their love by gifting their beloved a red rose… as Dieter does, here:

“Thomas had to sit at the white piano and play. There was a scarlet rose on the lid of the piano. Five minutes before the start of the performance, Nora rushed backstage, grabbed the rose from the piano, and began to trample and crush it, like Obelix, who jumped on the Roman until he went head over heels into the ground. ‘No one has the right to give my husband red roses’.” (Excerpt from the book Nicht als die Wahrheit)

This is the first time we’ve heard of such story. But Dieter knows that people wouldn’t even notice that it was him who put on that red rose…

Sometimes it takes too much to tell the love of your life how you feel. For Bohlen, it was much easier to write it down on paper than to express it in a healthy way and without taking advantage. And telling Thomas “I’ll love you till eternity” (Song: Lady Lai) on paper seems a much easier task for a person who lacks communication like Bohlen.

Lady Lai couldn’t have been better sung by Thomas. It’s such a beautiful ballad, about the Chinese eyes of someone. But because Bohlen doesn’t have the voice, he also tries to imagine his feelings in Thomas’ sad voice. It’s a very powerful voice that shakes you up completely and brings you to another world.

“Chinese Eyes” is a really common and used term in songs. But Chinese Eyes is not meant to be taken literally (the eyes of a Chinese woman). Chinese eyes describe the almond-shaped eyes which have a very deep, dark color of brown. And we all know who fits that description.

And once you think Bohlen stops his perversion, at least, in the songs, then, you hear songs like “Geronimo’s Cadillac” and “In Shaire”, and you quickly snap back to the reality, that he’ll never change. Well, that’s kind of naive to think he’ll change.

A gay man like Bohlen can’t be one hundred percent romantic. That romanticism will always be overshadowed by violent sexual attraction, and that’s completely different. Actually, the violent attraction, possessiveness and perversion, also come due to his fear of being alone, unloved, and not near his beloved.

In pop culture, the Cadillac always symbolized a person’s genitals. Be it male or female. This slang was often used in the 1980s music as a synonym of having sex. And Bohlen of course could not leave such implication behind.

Dieter ALWAYS described Thomas as Winnetou’s little brother, (Winnetou is the Native American hero of German novelist Karl May, Germans for decades have been incredibly obsessed with Native American culture and for it, they’ve faced tons of backlash), or most importantly, as the Chief of the Apache, which was Geronimo. So… what else, if not vagina, can imply the pink Cadillac of Geronimo, that is making you, Dieter, and the girls (let’s say the Balling sisters) so mad?

And this Cadillac of Geronimo, of course, made Dieter so mad, that he was so awe-inspired to write “In Shaire”. This literary inversion was so clever that everyone could easily think it was once again a stupid and obscure Modern Talking song title, as always happened with them… So nobody can think that Shaire in Urdu/Arabic means “Poet”. And since “In” cannot be an English preposition, in this case, it means the title is fully Arabic, just inverted, Shayr Yain, which translates… A Moaning Poet, a poet who laments, groans, moans…

In Arabic is not necessarily meant as moaning during sex, but also moaning, lamenting, groaning in the brink of death. For Thomas, it has a double meaning: That sex is death for him. (Ring a bell?) Here “La petite mort” genuinely becomes deathly.

For Dieter, his love is violent sex. He thought “his love” could heal Thomas from dying and suffering. He admits it, himself.

His kind of love being a wild, wild ride on the Cadillac of Geronimo.

Speaking of death, at all costs we must mention the song “Under My Skin”, which is not a MT song but from Dieter’s other project, Blue System. It’s not lyrics with homosexual undertones, but it’s yet another indicator of Dieter speaking about Thomas’ “death”. Its video-clip was so scandalous that it was banned from being transmitted on national channel ZDF.

In another article, we explained the contents of the video-clip. Here we will explain the lyrics, which are written by Dieter, but in Thomas’ perspective. The entire song describes Thomas as not the weakling everybody thinks, and that he went through so much, that the only salvation was for the misery to end.

In Thomas’ beginnings of his career, he had a song called “Ich hatte mal Freunde” (I once had friends). In the very same song of Bohlen the lyrics start with:

“You can knock me out, you can take my friends. But you’ll never get me down”

The rest of the lyrics you can find online, and you will realize everything that what we’ve told here fits exactly what the lyrics of this song described.

Now back to “MT”, excluding the band’s ardent fans, people in general only knew 4-5 songs from them. It was much easier for Bohlen to write that he was in love or that Thomas was indeed at some point on the brink of death. When your love is dying, dreams become your place of comfort. “The old nightingale is flying tonight, to my dreams” (Song: Angels sing in New York City). In the German lexicon and general literature, the nightingale is mostly referred to as the “poet” of death and immortality. With his sweet and beautiful voice, he sings all his life to cherish his loneliness in the darkness until he dies, and when he dies, the songs remain, and his spirit flies away.

Oh, who that nightingale might be…

The separation of Modern Talking became such a big drama, that one thought the drama could’ve easily been avoided. But who doesn’t love some drama, especially those who want to hide something?

Thomas can pretend all he wants that Dieter ended Modern Talking “abruptly”, and without his knowledge, not only he didn’t end it, but we all know it wasn’t ended out of nowhere. They all knew it would end, and not because of the “fights” with Nora. But due to other things. It was bound to happen. “And it hurts so much, but I have to go…” (Song: Angels sing in New York City)

And Dieter rushed quickly onto a new project, to keep expressing his poems. To keep his beloved’s memory alive, through his perversion, of course. Because nothing in the lyrics of Blue System implied love or romanticism. Only longing for the Cadillac of Geronimo.

“The times were hard, and I was running. I could feel my chance was coming, another time, another place. A pillow filled with frozen tears. […] Cause I’m lonely, feeling blue. I know, that I’ll never die of love. But I never get enough. I have no time to lose.” (Song: Jet Airliner)

The constant, inexistent fighting between Nora and Dieter wasn’t because of the dominance over Modern Talking. For Dieter this was a lost battle. The constant fighting was rather about Thomas. “We’re all romantic warriors, fighting for your heart, we’re fighting for your love” (Song: Romantic Warriors)

Not a big coincidence that the first song of Blue System begins with “Sorry…” (Little Sarah)

And with Thomas’ (metaphorical) death, it was only left for Dieter to reminisce about the old times, the times in the “Old Night Cafe”. “Saw you in that light. In the old, “Old Night Cafe”… I’m looking through the eyes of love” (Song: Titanic 650604) The inspiration from “Just Like An Angel” is strong here.

Bohlen definitely has an inner submissiveness, no matter the attempts to look dominant. He can only look dominant with women because he is a wounded gay man. People have no idea how petty and resentful hidden gay men can be towards women. Hurt people hurt people. You could also say that the women were just decorations and punching bags who could do household for him.

But when it comes to Thomas, he will always say things like “Make me, take me, hit me, hit me all night long, make me ooh, so strong” – “Only 48 hours, you can make me strong and safe”. (Song: 48 hours)

The lyrics written on records are: “Hey believe me, baby, I don’t lie”. But he clearly sings “Hit me hit me baby, I don’t lie”. This discrepancy is quite suspicious. In the music video, we can see a young Nadja Abd el Farrag, Dieter’s first tanned girlfriend: her shades and her angles give the vibe of a young Thomas. But people of course turned a blind eye to it.

In a song like “Body Heat”, the perversion and the longing are so blatant (and disgusting) that at this point it won’t take you 3 seconds to Google every song that comes to your mind and read their lyrics. And that Bohlen clearly thinks his love can heal Thomas, is quite clear in the text. “Feel my body heat, I’ll heal your love, babe. Come on feel the beat, Yeah I can drive you mad”. As we said, he admits it.

If Tears for Fears’ “Shout, let it all out” was about protesting, then “You you you, let it out, let it all out, cry for love, shout out loud” (Song: Body Heat) from Bohlen is clearly about the process of orgasm. Not his, of course… But it just cannot be more off-putting, than to admit yourself you’re into non-consensual BDSM, Didda. Typical of a pervert with rape tendencies.

And that Bohlen and Thomas never broke contact even after the end of the band in 1987, is explained quite clearly in “Romeo & Juliet” from 1992. Love on the telephone is killing me, I sail my ship alone, old memories. The contact never broke.

But when Bohlen finally won his baby back, he was so happy, so submissive and so horny… apologies, we mean “so strong”, that he made 6 Years – 6 Nights sound like the gayest anthem in the history of gay anthems. The song is fitting for the gay clubs of the US, the lyrics were so gay and submissive, and Dieter himself looked like the gayest of all gay men to have gayed on earth.

And all this effort… for a heterosexual man who could’ve stayed with his real family and marry a princess, have 100 children and be recognized the most beautiful prince to have graced on earth.

It would be interesting to know if Bohlen asked Rolf, Michael and Detlef (the choir singers) to sing in such a way these lyrics: “I’ll wait 6 years, 6 nights for you. I’ll give my heart, my pride, that’s true. I will wait I will wait. ‘Till I need you. I will wait I will wait. My dreams come true”. Pure torment.

There are more creepy lyrics such as “Under pressure, maximum sex” (Song: This Old Town) but we’re going to leave it at that. It will become more and more obvious with every text you read who Dieter is in reality.

Exposing a so-called heterosexual male as a gay man is fun, not because he is gay (or bisexual) but because he is a disgusting, betraying pervert. His crazy fans in Germany and Russia always projected that homosexuality onto Thomas, and the media always worked on making him look like a chick magnet who cannot be wronged.

You can say that one of the many reasons Bohlen himself refused categorically to perform in the USA, is because he would get called the gayest man to exist.

And speaking of gays, what do the gays themselves think?

The website called “gay-or-straight.com” is an old website, where more than a decade ago, people (majority part of LGBT) decided which celebrity gave them “gay vibes”.

Gays are often described as having “an extra sense”, as they use it to identify which man or woman is homosexual. This extra sense or observation is called ‘gaydar’.

More than 700 people think that Thomas, who was once insulted as a faggot, is “very straight”, while for Bohlen, the heterosexual man of the century, there is a description of “highly gay”. And that with 2 times less the amount of visitors.

And if gays themselves think that Thomas does not give them gay vibes, but Dieter does, who are we to disagree?

There are fans who never noticed Dieter as a hidden pervert, however, there are/were fans, young and old, who noticed such things, but think they’re a couple. As such, these girls/women surf through online websites to read or write slash fictions (fictitious same-sex relationship stories) about Modern Talking.

It’s torture to even dare read (let alone “enjoy”, ugh) such fan-fictions, that have existed for almost 20 years online in the largest slash webs in Russia and Ukraine. Before Tokio Hotel fanfics (where the twins are in love with each other) there existed Modern Talking fanfics.

These fanfics, majority gay erotica, give life to the perverted lyrics Bohlen wrote: Thomas is almost always the submissive masochist, who experiences non-sensual sex (gets raped) and likes it ’til he loses consciousness, and Bohlen, on the other hand, is not made to look like a rapist, (because how could he resist such a beauty, no?) but his actions are technically STILL imply he is A rapist. For these mentally ill people, that’s romance. So it’s okay for them.

And emphasizing it again: A true lover would never send you to the wolves, would never betray you, use you for sex, steal your spotlight and chat sh*t behind your back. A true lover protects you. “I’d let myself be killed for Thomas”, said Dieter, so why aren’t you dead yet?