• Mixtapes
    • Metal Mixtapes
    • Minor Key Mixtapes
    • Christmas Mixtapes
  • Mini Movie Reviews
    • Full List (A – Z)
    • Recent Reviews
  • Board Game Reviews
    • Recent Reviews
    • Children’s Game Reviews
    • Expansion Reviews
    • Full List (A-Z)
  • Reader Mail
  • About
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Mixtapes
    • Metal Mixtapes
    • Minor Key Mixtapes
    • Christmas Mixtapes
  • Mini Movie Reviews
    • Recent Reviews
    • Full List (A – Z)
  • Board Game Reviews
    • Recent Reviews
    • Children’s Game Reviews
    • Expansion Reviews
    • Full List (A-Z)
  • Reader Mail
  • About
  • Contact

Minor Key Music 94: Peer Rabin – So Much Tenderness

August 31, 2025

It is difficult to exactly pin down the style of today’s song. A melancholy ballad from Rainer Fassbinder’s 1970 disaffected “noir” The American Soldier, it sounds nothing I can quite put my finger on. With over the top lyrics (especially when played over the ridiculously extended histrionics of the titular character’s effete brother), and the cyclical repetition as the song continually restarts, it’s a dreamlike artifact of a 1960s that never was:

https://isleyunruh.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/So-Much-Tenderness-Peer-Raben.mp3

Sung by Fassbinder collaborator (and lover, along with Rabin) Günther Kaufmann, the lyrics are pure Fassbinder:

Alone you start my friend,
Alone is now an end.
I feel the storm my friend
And it was borne again.

So much tenderness is in my head,
So much loneliness is in my bed,
So much tenderness over the world…

Thirteen days in another land
No chance for hand in hand.
Light and sea of blue
Your words are never true.

So much tenderness is in my head,
So much loneliness is in my bed,
So much tenderness over the world…

No more a love is in my arms,
When life decides so hard,
No feeling for the time,
The change for me is on the ground.

So much tenderness is in my head,
So much loneliness is in my bed,
So much tenderness over the world…

Rabin went on to score almost all of Fassbinder’s subsequent films, and his songs are always uniquely identifiable. Songs of their time, and yet also seemingly out of place in any time period. Melancholy, bizarre, and full of, if you will, tenderness.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

Share

Minor Key Music  / Non-Metal Music

Leave A Reply


Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Recent Comments

    • Angkan on My Favorite Movies 32 – Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai, 1997)
    • Stratu on The New Wave of Indigenous National Socialist Black Metal
    • isley.unruh on The Raw Black Metal case for The Beach Boys’ Shortnin’ Bread
    • NoJoy on The Raw Black Metal case for The Beach Boys’ Shortnin’ Bread
    • isley.unruh on OTGP 5: Trevanian’s Nicholai Hel in Shibumi
  • Recent Posts

    • Minor Key Music 94: Peer Rabin – So Much Tenderness
    • 5 More Black Metal Cover Photo Cock Shots
    • The Raw Black Metal case for The Beach Boys’ Shortnin’ Bread
    • My Favorite Movies 84 – Angel and the Badman
    • Minor Key Monday 93: Giorgio Moroder – I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone
  • Categories

    • Art (5)
    • Books (13)
      • Only the Good Parts (6)
    • Comics (6)
    • Film (259)
      • Best Movies of the Decade (2)
      • Best Movies of the Year (5)
      • Cinema Scripture School (4)
      • James Bond Picture Books (2)
      • Kumites (4)
      • Mini Movie Reviews (98)
      • My Favorite Movies (84)
      • Year in Reviews (6)
    • Food and Cooking (9)
    • Games (52)
      • Brilliant Board Games (2)
      • Descent D&D (7)
      • Mini Board Game Reviews (12)
      • Painting in Miniature (6)
      • RE-Zork (10)
    • Holidays (21)
      • April Fool's (8)
      • Halloween (2)
    • Internet (32)
      • Memes I Missed (23)
      • The Art of Trolling (4)
    • Lists (51)
    • Mailbag Monday (86)
    • Math and Science (3)
    • Me (61)
      • Rousing Tales from Isley's Spirited Past (12)
    • Metal Music (129)
      • Album Artwork for the Ages (3)
      • Battle Vests of the KVLT & TR00 (3)
      • Best Metal of the Year (6)
      • Extreme Metal Radio Edits (2)
      • Mid-month Metal Masterpiece (74)
      • Racism in Metal (6)
    • Myth and Fantasy (8)
      • Archetypical (4)
    • Nerd Open Letters (20)
    • Non-Metal Music (106)
      • Minor Key Music (94)
    • Other (7)
    • Philosophy (4)
    • Sports and Fitness (8)
    • Spotlight Posts (65)
    • Tales from Center Valley High (19)
      • Goth Blog (6)
      • Jock Blog (7)
      • Snob Blog (6)
    • Tolkien (97)
      • The Lost Chapters (6)
      • Travels in Middle-earth (76)
    • TV (5)
    • War (7)
  • Archives

  • Meta

    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org



  • Home
  • Mixtapes
    • Metal Mixtapes
    • Minor Key Mixtapes
    • Christmas Mixtapes
  • Mini Movie Reviews
    • Recent Reviews
    • Full List (A – Z)
  • Board Game Reviews
    • Recent Reviews
    • Children’s Game Reviews
    • Expansion Reviews
    • Full List (A-Z)
  • Reader Mail
  • About
  • Contact
© Copyright www.isleyunruh.com