Song

Extravaganza

Running time

3:43 Minutes

Time of origin and release

1999 (officially unreleased)

Music, lyrics and production

Music: Rob & Ferdi Bolland
Lyrics: Falco, Rob & Ferdi Bolland
Producer: Rob & Ferdi Bolland

About the song

When the Bollands, the producers of Falco’s albums Falco 3, Emotional, Wiener Blut and Nachtflug, came up with the idea that it was possible to mix excerpts from interviews and Falco songs with new music and in this way create “new” Falco tracks, they were probably very impressed by this concept. So they not only just this technique for other samples songs done in 1998 (Tribute To Falco) and 1999 (Fascinating Man, We Live For The Night, From The North To The South) but for a few other sampling tracks as well.

And so a total of six sampling songs were created at this time. In addition to the song discussed here, Angst, Change, Just An Illusion, News York City Girls and Where Are You Now? also belong to the so-called Bolland tapes, a collection of posthumously made fake songsthat were not officially released but found their way onto the Internet.

The musical tempo of the sampling number is slow, a synth melody and later a guitar track determine the song. The refrain (“Bowie, the man”) is also sung here by the Bollands. In the middle of the song, a guitar solo comes to the fore, then the chorus is repeated until the fade out.

Falco’s samples come from the tracks Cadillac Hotel, S.C.A.N.D.A.L. and Genie Und Partisan (A Fascinating Man).  All of these songs were originally produced by the Bollands in 1992 for the Falco album Nachtflug and for their own album "Darwin – The Evolution". The following passages emerged from an interview: “I glaube, dass Anfang der 80er Jahre Bowie eine sehr, sehr wichtige Figur war. Da war Bowie einer der leading forces”, “And the groove”.

Of course, a compilation of individual words from different songs makes little sense in terms of content. It’s a meaningless mixture with no meaning at all. Of course, David Bowie was one of Falco’s great heroes and the word "extravagance" can be said about both the Englishman and Falco himself, but that’s about it on the level of meaning.

Like all of the Bollands' other sampling songs, it’s hard to find anything original or interesting in this work. It’s a loveless production that only raises the question of why the Bollands allowed themselves to be carried away with such an inauthentic and quality-free idea.

Lyrics

Ich glaube, dass Anfang der 80er Jahre Bowie eine sehr, sehr wichtige Figur war
Da war Bowie eine der leading forces

Extravaganza *1
Whatever they want *1
Extravaganza*1
Whatever they want *1

Hey, hey, hey *3
Er war der Mann *3
Hey *3
(Bowie, the man)
Hey, hey, hey *3
Er war der Mann *3
Hey *3
(Bowie, the man)
Hey, hey, hey *3
Er war der Mann *3
Hey *3
(Bowie, the man)
Hey, hey, hey *3
Er war der Mann *3
Hey *3
(Bowie, the man)

Da war Bowie eine der leading forces
Und die groove
Da war Bowie eine der leading forces
Und die groove

Extravaganza *1
Whatever they want *1
Exzess *2
Extravaganza *1
Whatever they want *1

Hey, hey, hey *3
Er war der Mann *3
Hey *3
(Bowie, the man)
Er war der Mann *3
Hey *3
(Bowie, the man)
Er war der Mann *3
Hey *3
(Bowie, the man)
Hey, hey, hey *3
Er war der Mann *3
Hey *3
(Bowie, the man)

Hey, hey, hey *3
Er war der Mann *3
Hey *3
(Bowie, the man)
Hey, hey, hey *3
Er war der Mann *3
Hey *3
(Bowie, the man)

Hey, hey, hey *3
Er war der Mann *3
Hey *3
(Bowie, the man)
Er war der Mann *3
Hey *3
(Bowie, the man)

Hey, hey, hey *3
Er war der Mann *3
Hey *3
(Bowie, the man)

Extravaganza *1
Whatever they want *1
Ah!
Extravaganza *1
Whatever they want *1
Extravaganza *1
Whatever they want *1

Extra-Extra-Extravaganza *1
Whatever they want *1

Note: The samples with Falco’s voice come from interviews and the songs Cadillac Hotel (*1), S.C.A.N.D.A.L. (*2) andGenie Und Partisan (A Fascinating Man) (*3), 1992.

My text version is based on the text supplements of the official releases (booklet, inlay, cover etc.), if available. However, all lyrics were tapped and corrected according to the sung word. For songs where no lyric supplements are available, my version is based solely on the sung word or also on lyrics circulating on the Internet. Text passages sung in dialect are in moderate transliteration. Spelling errors, both German and English, were corrected in glaring cases. The spelling is based partly on the spelling valid at the time (text supplements), partly on the new spelling (own interceptions). Punctuation marks have generally been omitted. I am grateful for any suggestions for improvement.