Krallen means "to claw" or "to clutch". It's a strong, visceral verb that paints a much more intense picture than simply "to hold".
In the song, Rammstein uses this word to create a startling and memorable image: "Sie müssen sich an Sterne krallen" (They must claw onto stars). Instead of peaceful celestial beings, this lyric portrays angels desperately clinging to the stars to keep from falling from heaven. This dark and poetic twist is what makes the word so powerful and enticing to learn.
Rammstein takes a common idea—that good people become angels when they die—and gives it a dark and lonely twist. The song starts by stating this belief: "Wer zu lebzeit gut auf erden / Wird nach dem tod ein engel werden" (Whoever is good on earth in their lifetime / Will become an angel after death). But instead of a peaceful paradise, the afterlife for these angels is terrifying.
The narrator, speaking as one of these angels, explains they are only visible "wenn die wolken schlafengehn" (when the clouds go to sleep). Their existence is not blissful. They are filled with fear and isolation, confessing, "Wir haben angst und sind allein" (We are afraid and are alone). The imagery gets even more desperate with the line "Sie müssen sich an sterne krallen / Damit sie nicht vom himmel fallen" (They have to cling to stars / So that they don't fall from the sky). It's a constant struggle just to hang on. It's no wonder the song's main message is a powerful rejection of this fate: "Gott weiß ich will kein engel sein" (God knows I don't want to be an angel).
Six men from East Germany who have never swapped a member: Rammstein came together in Berlin in 1994 with Till Lindemann singing, Richard Kruspe and Paul Landers on guitars, Oliver Riedel on bass, Christoph Schneider on drums and Christian "Flake" Lorenz on keyboards. Landers, Lorenz and Schneider came out of the East Berlin punk band Feeling B. Their debut Herzeleid (1995) pushed the German music press into coining a genre name for it, Neue Deutsche Härte.
They sing in German, roll every R, and set fire to a good deal of the stage. Sehnsucht (1997) carried "Du hast" and "Engel" abroad and every album since has gone to number one in Germany, among them Mutter, Reise, Reise and Zeit (2022), while "Sonne", "Ich will", "Amerika" and the 2019 chart topper "Deutschland" fill out the setlist. Germany's youth media board put Liebe ist für alle da on its restricted index in 2009 over the track "Ich tu dir weh"; a Cologne court overturned that in 2010. Their stadium tour ended in Gelsenkirchen in July 2024 after 135 shows, and they have not been back on the road since.