Blau literally means "blue." However, in German, the phrase "blau machen" is an idiom that means "to play hooky" or "to skip work/school."
In the song, Johannes Oerding sings, "Und meine Zweifel machen blau" (And my doubts play hooky). He uses this playful idiom to express that on good days, his doubts simply disappear or take a break, allowing him to feel carefree and optimistic. This makes the word interesting and gives it a unique twist beyond its literal color meaning.
“An Guten Tagen” is Johannes Oerding’s sunny postcard from those rare, magical days when life feels wonderfully weightless. The German singer describes waking up surprisingly clear-headed, cruising through traffic-free streets, and finding even the gray city glowing with color. Doubts take the day off, laughter rings true, and every second with friends feels like a pocket-sized eternity. In this bright present there is no need to glance left or right, and certainly no reason to look back.
Yet hidden in the sparkle is a gentle nudge: the sunshine will take breaks, so let’s capture its glow while we can. Oerding snaps a mental photo of these perfect moments to remind himself, on darker days, that such light exists. The song is an uplifting anthem to mindfulness, gratitude, and the simple joy of saying, “Right now is enough—and it’s brilliant.”
Johannes Oerding was born in Münster in 1981 and grew up in Geldern-Kapellen on the Lower Rhine, where he started out in a school band called Groovekeller. People outside Germany's club circuit first heard him in 2009, when he opened for Simply Red on tour, the same year his debut album Erste Wahl came out.
Every album since has charted higher than the one before: Boxer reached number 11, Für immer ab jetzt number 4, Alles brennt number 3 and Kreise number 2, until Konturen gave him his first number 1 in 2019. Plan A and Hotel went to the top as well. His biggest song is An guten Tagen. He came second at the 2013 Bundesvision Song Contest with Nichts geht mehr, coached on The Voice of Germany in 2021, and has hosted Sing meinen Song since 2020. His trademark is a hat, and in 2019 he was even named Hutträger des Jahres.