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.
Most people grow up hearing that if you live a good life, you earn a spot in heaven. German industrial metal band Rammstein takes that traditional promise and completely flips it on its head in "Engel" (Angel). The track starts with the standard moral rule: "Wer zu Lebzeit gut auf Erden / wird nach dem Tod ein Engel werden" ("Whoever is good on Earth during their lifetime will become an angel after death"). Sounds peaceful, right? But then the singer looks up and notices something unsettling. Heaven is not a reward here; it is an isolating trap. Up there, these holy beings hide behind the sunlight, cut off from human contact, terrified of plummeting into the void: "Sie müssen sich an Sterne krallen / damit sie nicht vom Himmel fallen" ("They have to cling to stars so they do not fall from the sky").
The song really hits its stride when the perspective shifts straight into the angels' point of view. They only come out after dark ("Erst wenn die Wolken schlafengehn" / "Only when the clouds go to sleep"), shivering with dread and loneliness: "Wir haben Angst und sind allein" ("We are afraid and are alone"). Notice the blunt German idiom "zu Lebzeit" (in life / during one's lifetime) and the old-fashioned directional phrasing "gen Himmel" (towards heaven), which sets up a church-like expectation before tearing it down. It is delightfully bleak, anti-heroic rock: why behave yourself on Earth just to end up terrified and clinging to a distant rock in the dark? The singer makes his choice loud and clear in the famous chorus chant: "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.