From Aural Innovations #24 (July 2003)
The answer is "yes", definitely! While I was working on my interview with Joachim Schäfer of Kin Ping Meh in this issue, I received an email by a young lady from ??? (a big city on the US East coast) who asked me whether I could help her with some information about the lyrics of Kin Ping Meh as she had found one of my articles in last year’s October issue (AI #21) about Seventies’ progressive Rock bands in South-West Germany (that also covered Kin Ping Meh) when searching the web for them. As I had planned to meet Joachim the other day to take a few more photographs I thought of asking him, of course. But a couple of hours later I was checking my CD collection to see whether the lyrics were printed on the covers... on some there were lyrics, on others not, and I didn’t find the one song that the young lady, let’s call her "Liz", has been asking for specifically. Being the "helpful knight" that I am, I certainly began to listen to the albums with no lyrics printed in the booklet, leading to an adventurous evening for me, and an adventurous night for a young lady in a big city on the US East coast with an altogether surprising end. Aural Innovation’s German correspondent has the full story...
Liz (liz@internet.com) wrote:
Hi there Frank - I don't mean to intrude, but I found your article online concerning Kin Ping Meh... do you have any idea where I can get my hands on their lyrics? I'm specifically looking for a song with the line "Her eyes are so seducing...". I can't find them anywhere... can you help a girl out?? I would be very grateful! - Liz
Frank (frank.gingeleit@gmx.de) wrote:
Hi Liz - I'm going to meet Joachim Schäfer, co-founder of Kin Ping Meh, tomorrow and will ask him. - I'm quite sure that we'll find a way "to help a girl out". Later, Frank
Liz (liz@internet.com) wrote:
You are the absolute best! I would appreciate it so much... you have no idea. Thank you!!
Frank (frank.gingeleit@gmx.de) wrote:
I found the tune - it's "My Future" from their very first self titled LP. But unfortunately the lyrics are *not* printed in the booklet of my CD version. Would it help if I sent you a copy or a mp3 version of the tune and you'd do the transcription by yourself? Just let me know.
Liz (liz@internet.com) wrote:
All I need is one line from the song! Do you happen to know a few lines? If you could just write them out for me, I would win this bet and get to laugh at my boyfriend. Which would be fun. Thank you!!
Frank (frank.gingeleit@gmx.de) wrote:
Your eyes are so seducing
But I'm determined by my way
Your offer is confusing
My nervous system is o.k.
Have fun! All the best, Frank
Liz (liz@internet.com) wrote:
You are my hero. Thank you!
Frank (frank.gingeleit@gmx.de) wrote:
Could you tell me a word about the nature of this bet? You know this song is from 1971, it never really was a hit - I'm just curious.
Liz (liz@internet.com) wrote:
When we can’t meet for a while and get really bored, my boyfriend and I send each other emails with song lyrics in them. The objective is to find one that the other can't reply to - i.e., write the next line of the song. Most of the time, the lines are very easy to look up just by doing a quick search on "Google". But when he sent me the line "Your eyes are so seducing", I couldn't find it anywhere. He bet me that I would never be able to figure it out - if I couldn't, I would have to do anything that he wanted. If I could, I could make him do anything that I wanted. (A very general, yet deadly serious bet - but he insists that he is always right about everything and I really just wanted to prove him wrong). He really thought that I would never, ever come up with it - all he would tell me is that it was one of his favorite songs, that it was by a German band, and that they played "progressive Rock" in the 1970s. I figured out the band by going back to one of the first emails he ever sent me, in which he listed a bunch of bands that he liked that I had never heard of. I looked up the ones I didn't recognize and discovered that the band had to be Kin Ping Meh. When I searched the web for anything about them, I came to your article. And you helped me, and now I get to go see him tonight and prove that I only needed one day to win the bet. So thank you!
The next morning Frank (frank.gingeleit@gmx.de) wrote:
Hi Liz, how was your night? No, just kidding! Having not read anything about it in the papers this morning, it must not have had "deadly" consequences for either of you ;-)) But I hope that your boyfriend has learned his lesson! (I don't like people who insist to be always right about everything...) All the best, Frank
Liz (liz@internet.com) wrote:
He definitely learned his lesson! He was stunned that I figured it out. I got to gloat and gloat and it was wonderful. Now I have to figure out what my "anything I want" is from winning. I think I'm going to make him take me on vacation. Again, thank you! You may just have earned me a nice vacation. - Liz
Now as the story has ended, your immagination can start. Maybe I’ll receive a vacation postcard by her. Maybe this vacation is very nice, at a romantic place, and maybe her boyfriend will ask her to marry him. And maybe she will really marry him. And maybe, just imagine, in many, many years from now "Mrs. Liz" will tell her grandchildren how it happened that she and her husband got married... And this will prove what we all know: Progressive Rock is here to stay forever, passed from one generation to the next... and will never stop to play an important role in our everyday life!
File this article under "humor", but the email correpondence is authentic. There are just minimal changes to protect "Liz’" privacy.