Why are you here?

I know why I am here.

As a shadow of oppression threatens to descend over the
land it is a good thing to reach into your hearts and your
history to help you remember why you are here.

Die Gedanken Sind Frei!



When the time comes that you can be imprisoned for
singing this song, that is the time to imprint it on your
heart. Teach it to your children. Sing it with your grandchildren. Die Gedanken Sind Frei!


Our ancestors into antiquity have sung this song or one
like it. Our progeny will be singing this song or one like
it after we are long gone and forgotten.

I am here to sing my own unique expression of this song.
So are you. The day we are not allowed to sing this
song in our own unique way, the day we are obliged to
sing someone else's version of this song only, then
creativity and life itself will be extinguished. You cannot
bottle the wind, and you cannot stifle the yearning for freedom. Doing so is incompatible with life itself.

Please, sing with me. Remember why you are here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYxYXygAg8M

DIE GEDANKEN SIND FREI

Die Gedanken sind frei
My thoughts freely flower,
Die Gedanken sind frei
My thoughts give me power.
No scholar can map them,
No hunter can trap them,
No man can deny:
Die Gedanken sind frei!

I think as I please
And this gives me pleasure,
My conscience decrees,
This right I must treasure;
My thoughts will not cater
To duke or dictator,
No man can deny--
Die Gedanken sind frei!

And if tyrants take me
And throw me in prison
My thoughts will burst free,
Like blossoms in season.
Foundations will crumble,
The structure will tumble,
And free men will cry:
Die Gedanken sind frei!

Die Gedanken sind frei" ("Thoughts are free") is a German song. The text and the melody can be found in Lieder der Brienzer Mädchen, printed in Bern, Switzerland between 1810 and 1820. The lyricist and the composer are unknown, though some attribute the text to Ferdinand Freiligrath.

The idea represented in the title — that thoughts are free — was expressed as early as Antiquity,[1] and became prominent again in the Middle Ages, when Walther von der Vogelweide (1170-1230) sang: "Sind doch Gedanken frei" ("Thoughts are certainly free"). The Austrian Minnesänger Dietmar von Aist (12th century) composed the line "Die Gedanken, die sind ledig frei" ("only thoughts are free").

A slightly different version of the text can be found under the title "Lied des Verfolgten im Turm" ("Song of the persecuted in the tower") in Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano's circa 1800 folk poetry collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn. This version was given a new musical setting by Gustav Mahler in the 1890s.

The song originally had four strophes to which a fifth was later added. Today, their order may vary. During the German Revolution (1848/1849) and in Nazi Germany, the song was forbidden. It also was used by the White Rose anti-Nazi resistance movement in Germany. [2] Pete Seeger recorded the song in 1966 on his Dangerous Songs!? album.

Die Gedanken sind frei, wer kann sie erraten,
sie fliegen vorbei wie nächtliche Schatten.
Kein Mensch kann sie wissen, kein Jäger erschießen
mit Pulver und Blei, Die Gedanken sind frei!

Ich denke was ich will und was mich beglücket,
doch alles in der Still', und wie es sich schicket.
Mein Wunsch und Begehren kann niemand mir wehren,
es bleibet dabei: Die Gedanken sind frei!

Und sperrt man mich ein im finsteren Kerker,
das alles sind rein vergebliche Werke.
Denn meine Gedanken zerreißen die Schranken
und Mauern entzwei, die Gedanken sind frei!

Drum will ich auf immer den Sorgen absagen
und will mich auch nimmer mit Grillen mehr plagen.
Man kann ja im Herzen stets lachen und scherzen
und denken dabei: Die Gedanken sind frei!

Thoughts are free, who can guess them?
They flee by like nocturnal shadows.
No man can know them, no hunter can shoot them,
with powder and lead: Thoughts are free!

I think what I want, and what delights me,
still always reticent, and as it is suitable.
My wish and desire, no one can deny me
and so it will always be: Thoughts are free!

And if I am thrown into the darkest dungeon,
all this would be futile work,
because my thoughts tear all gates
and walls apart. Thoughts are free!

So I will renounce my sorrows forever,
and never again will torture myself with some fancy ideas.
In one's heart, one can always laugh and joke
and think at the same time: Thoughts are free!