Firmament translates to "firmament" or "sky". It's a more poetic and archaic word for the sky, evoking a sense of grandeur and vastness that isn't captured by the more common "Himmel" (heaven/sky).
In Rammstein's "Mein Herz Brennt," the word appears in the line "Ein heller schein am firmament" (A bright glow in the firmament). This choice of word adds a dramatic and almost mythical quality to the imagery, suggesting a powerful, almost supernatural event unfolding in the heavens as the heart burns.
Welcome to one of Rammstein's darkest fairytales. The song starts like a creepy bedtime story: "Nun, liebe kinder, gebt fein acht" (Now, dear children, pay close attention). The narrator is a terrifying figure, the "stimme aus dem kissen" (voice from the pillow), who brings children a special gift torn directly from its own chest: a burning heart.
This isn't a story about love. This heart gives the narrator the power "Die augenlider zu erpressen" (to blackmail the eyelids), controlling whether the children can sleep or not. It brings an army of nightmares with it, including "Dämonen, geister, schwarze feen" (demons, ghosts, black fairies) that crawl from the cellar to hide under the bed. These creatures then steal the children's tears and press them into the narrator's "kalten venen" (cold veins). The whole song builds around that one, intense declaration: "Mein herz brennt!" (My heart burns!).
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.