An Ode to music

Ship: Regina Maris
Date: 5th of February 2025
Position: Caribbean Sea
Geographical Position: 16°25.106’N 082°27.140’W
Etmal: 158nm
Total: 7252nm

Music has a special meaning here, after all, no matter where you go, you’ll probably hear a song you‘ve heard (a thousand times) before. It helps with annoying tasks, makes watches and galley-duty more fun and turns every evening with friends better.

I‘ll be honest, before coming here, I thought that it wouldn‘t be necessary to take a music box with me. I could always listen to music with my earphones, couldn‘t I? For enjoying music privately, that is the perfect solution, but in every group you need speakers.

Trust me, I‘ve been here long enough to say that the friend with the speaker is always welcome in smaller (and bigger) gatherings, just like the friend with the chosen MP3 Player. Usually, in a friend group, there is always that one person with the most/the best music and in my friend group, that person is Antonio.

As our chosen music distributor, he doesn’t just lend his MP3 Player to whoever asks first (Marilen), he also downloaded music we wanted when he had wifi and then sat down at the OC laptop to give it to us. How lucky are we?! The only ones who are appreciated more are the people who have music on their phones. Marie (the big one), Matthias and sometimes Balthasar with his IPad certainly are the musical-jackpots on this ship.

But why do we appreciate music so much? Because listening to the same music together again and again connects. You will see how different our tastes in music are and yet, the friend groups and watches both have their songs that function as their own watch/voyage/life-soundtrack.

That itself is beautiful and important, but we also had certain situations where both groups wanted to listen to their own music at the same time. Little fights like these only show how important music is to every single person here, don‘t they? That is why I‘m going to show you exactly what is playing on the Regina Maris, so that you can sing and dance at home just like we do here.

You‘ve seen what it looks like on board, but now, you‘ll get to know what it sounds like in our new home.

Especially on watches, we often hear the same music over and over again. It seems that you can differentiate between the music every watch listens to and the music you can hear generally when people spend time together and want some background noise.

My old watch for example, the old C2 watch, had a very special taste in music since we could enjoy the luxury of not having to rely on MP3 players. We had two people who had tons of music on their phones: Matthias and Marie (the big one). What a luxury! Our watch playlist contained songs like:

Charlie 2 (my old watch)

Hier kommt Kurt — (Hannes played that song in his watch one day and I fell in love with this song)

I want it that way — Backstreet boys (Matthias got the nickname „Matthia“, pronounced in English because whenever he connected his phone with the speaker, it said „IPhone of Matthia, connected“. Then, one day, Anna and I realised that the first line of this song sounds exactly like that. „You are…MATTHIA“ instead of „you are my fire“ was a sentence he could hear at least once per watch)

Last Christmas — Wham! (Personally, I LOVE this song. During December, I struck a deal with Matthias and Chris, which allowed me to play this song once per watch. Let’s just say that many people joined us on the poop deck whenever it was on 😉 One time, Chris and Matthias listened to it in the engine room together without me. Let‘s just say that I‘m still not over that.)

Bayerisches Bier — (Chris and me are both from Bavaria and the Bavarian version of Griechischer Wein has a special place in our heart. It was also the first time the boys got to hear me speak with a Bavarian dialect during the line „und die oiden Stammdischbriader“)

Mutter, der Mann mit dem Koks ist da — Falco (Arvid asked for this song one day and changed the course of history with that. Now, whenever someone says the word „Energie“, we echo that word back to them. Listen to this song, then you‘ll know why)

Herzbeben — Helene Fischer (This song is iconic ever since Malte wanted it on one of our first Charlie watches back in October. His dance moves will never be forgotten!)

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) — ABBA
Angels — Robbie Williams
Valerie — Amy Winehouse
Skandal im Sperrbezirk — Spider Murphy Gang (I‘m from Munich. Do I have to say more?)
American Pie — Billy Cassadie

You give love a bad name — Bon Jovi (Chris likes rock, just like Matthias. That song started this wave of rock music that quickly became normal on our watches. Other rock songs are:)

Smells Like Teen Spirit — Nirvana
Easy living — Uriah Heep
Enter sandman — Metallica
Living on a prayer — Bon Jovi

Especially in the end, we often put on Chris’ playlist called „Keine Kapriolen, Rüdiger“, which is a playlist of/for his friend Rüdiger at home. Fun fact: The songs in there are the same type of rock songs I mentioned a minute ago, which is pretty much exactly the type of music my father listens to. Wanna guess what his name is? Yes, Rüdiger as well dad

I absolutely have to mention my own playlist on Matthias‘s phone, which I called „Marie steuert, die Welt ist wieder im Lot“, because when „Marie steuert ist die Welt wieder im Lot“.

You can surely understand that I want to listen to my own favourite songs while steering as a reward for, well, steering like a pro. It contains tons of Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Maneskin and other bangers. To be exact:

Man down — Rihanna
Telephone — Lady Gaga, Beyoncé
Santa Maria — Roland Kaiser
Read your diary — Maneskin
Valerie — Amy Winehouse
…baby one more time — Britney Spears
Everybody — Backstreet boy
Skandal im Sperrbezirk — Spider Murphy Gang (told you I‘m from Munich)
Griechischer Wein — Udo Jürgens
Smells like Teen Spirit — Nirvana

As you can see, I‘m a great DJ.

But those songs weren‘t always a thing. On the first Charlie watches I had, the ones before we crossed the Atlantic, we listened to only Marie’s (the big one) music. By now, many of those songs are sadly overplayed here, but still they‘re amazing.

So let me introduce you to the songs we barely listen to anymore because we‘ve heard them a few times too often:

Crazy in love — Beyoncé
Disturbia — Rihanna
Riptide — Vance joy
Moves like Jagger — Maroon 5
Only girl in the world — Rihanna
I‘m still standing — Elton John (but to be honest, this song still hits perfectly when everyone else is seasick but you;)
Ausgehen — Annenmaykantereit
Pocahontas — Annenmaykantereit
Vielleicht, vielleicht — Annenmaykantereit
Telephone — Lady Gaga, Beyoncé
Daddy lessons — Beyoncé
Uptown Funk — Bruno Mars
Stick season — Noah Kahan
S&M — Rihanna
Einmal um die Welt — Cro
Bad chick — Cro
Easy — Cro (by now, Cro‘s Music is forbidden on board)

The total opposite is Arne. His music taste is so …interesting that it makes many wonder what went wrong there. He likes his music like his Alcohol, German, hardstyle and with a disgusting taste the more you pay attention to it.

I count myself lucky that in the few watches I‘ve had with Arne, I didn‘t have to listen to the worst of it (yet). Alligatoah was what he played yesterday, but I‘m still awaiting the by now famous „Ich ess Fleisch, nur noch Fleisch, niemals Gemüse“ Song.

Another person with a famous music taste is Hannes. His dad-jokes-humour shows in the music he likes. I vividly remember having galley with him in the first month and giving him the phone with music so that he could choose a few songs for later.

I expected… i don‘t know, something normal, but what came next almost made me go insane:

Sägewerk Bad Segeberg — Wise Guys
Hier kommt Kurt — Frank Zander
Ba Ba Banküberfall — EAV
Sommer, Sonne, Kaktus — Helge Schneider

But every now and then, you can find a normal song in his playlist.

Money, Money, Money — ABBA
Smoke on the water — Deep Purple (I have to credit Chris for telling me who‘s singing this)

Everyone obviously has a different taste in music, which is visible in the broad variety of songs. In the evenings, you can hear the one half of the ship listen to songs like:

Easy — Cro
Wie du manchmal fehlst — Zartmann, Ski Aggu
Küssen — 01099, Gustav, Zachi
Eyyyyy — Zartmann
Von 9 bis 9 — Badchieff
Panama – GReeeN

The other half prefers „Christian´s Musik“ at the moment, which is a playlist containing 650 completely different songs from every genre, rock, pop, techno, rap and even one Beethoven — sonata.

A little bit of everything makes the perfect background noise on shuffle and, when choosing songs, just good music. Together, we even started to like a techno remix of the movie soundtrack of 3 Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel. Partially, that‘s just crazy, but it only further shows how stupid songs like this one have the power to connect us and give us the sudden burst of energy and laughter we need every once in a while.

Privately, everyone listens to their own music, but together, the groups have found their own songs that they all like. In that, there lies a simplicity and mere understanding and appreciation for the time spent together.

I can‘t even count all of the little jokes that we make about our songs, how often we quote certain lyrics and how much positive power all of that holds. As I‘m writing all of this, I hear Felipa ask Johannes if he has a speaker she could use for her watch and just yesterday, Leonore said that Music is a necessity for her.

Out of the galley sounds a song I don’t know and the people on the poop deck scream along to Major Tom. Without music, our lives here would look very different and not in a positive sense.

But my watch starts in 10 minutes and I still have to organise a speaker, so I‘ll say „Thank you for the music“ and for giving it to me/us!

Anmerkungen:

Nuala: Hallo Familie und Freunde, ich denke an euch und habe euch sooo sehr lieb❤️❤️❤️ Ich hoffe euch geht es allen gut. Wir haben jetzt einen 5 Sterne Koch am Bord und das Essen ist Bombe. Was mich natürlich sehr freut. 😊 Übermorgen sind wir in Kuba. Darauf freue ich mich schon sehr. Liebe Grüße an alle und hab‘ euch so lieb❤️

Marie: Und, Papa, bist du stolz darauf, welche Musik wir gehört haben? Grüße <3

Marilen: Hallo ihr Lieben, ich vermisse euch sehr, habe hier aber auch eine sehr schöne Zeit. Das Essen hier ist seit Rainer auch echt crazy geil, Ich sage nur: Birnenzwiebel. Minz, Du fehlst mir besonders.

Gossip Girl: Hello upper east siders! I am surprised that nr2 and nr3 got back together just 2 days after my first update. Nr4 is handling it surprisingly well, maybe because the couple is giving itself only a test trial week?