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[–] 86 points 11 months ago (32 children)

There is a German lullaby with the line "tomorrow morning, if God wants, you will wake up again" and quite a number of kids worried "what if He doesn't?"

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  • [–] 41 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    That's honestly a terrifying idea to put in a kid's brain before they go to sleep.

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  • [–] 33 points 11 months ago (12 children)

    Isn't that a thing in English, too?

    Now I lay me down to sleep and pray the Lord my soul to keep,
    And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.

    Still pretty messed up.

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  • [–] 17 points 11 months ago (9 children)
  • [–] 13 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    That's why Metallica put it in their song "Enter Sandman", which Motörhead later covered (I'm only saying that because I like the Motorhead version better)

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (5 children)

    I like the Funktallica version

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (4 children)

    That sounds interesting, you got a link?

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  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    https://youtube.com/@conhuir

    He funks up a bunch of metal bands, it's good stuff

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago

    Used to say that as a kid. Catholicism is a fear thing. I don't think much of it. I don't think it's particularly bad, just hey, if I choke on air tonight, bring me to the promised land! Unfortunately, this is it.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    This is even darker! The one I quoted is arguably just a filler to get enough syllables for the line. Depending on your image of God, it's just "of cause he does". Your version elaborates on the idea much more

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago* (1 child)

    @lugal @EfreetSK child mortality rates were pretty fucking high in earlier times. Around the time the original poem was published 40-50% of children under 15 died.Only vaccines and modern medicine put this down to 4.2% globally in 2022, with the most developed countries reaching 0.3%That is to say... that poem had a point.

    Long-term Diagram of child mortality showing a sharp drop from 50% over most of hostory to close to 0-5% at current times

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    i don't see in the slightest how that is related to the post?

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    It's taking a song to an unintended implication. "All I want for Christmas is you" implies how important you are, not that you aren't much. And the German lullaby implies that God will wake you up, not that he might decide not to. Another commenter pointed out that "if" could also be "when" so God will wake you when he sees fit.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    This seems to be a mistranslation, because in German, “wenn” can mean both “if” and “when”, but it’s actually closer to “when”. If you really mean “if”, you use “falls” instead of “wenn”.

    So the intended meaning is in fact "tomorrow morning, when God wants it (ie. at the time God wants it), you will wake up again"

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    I honestly never thought about it that way. It wasn't sung to me when I was little and I only know it from people who misunderstood it. But it's not closer to "when". It's the default for both. You can disambiguate it to "falls" or "sobald" but "wenn" is in both contexts the most common word.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago* (2 children)

    I can’t argue with that, because the German “wenn” is definitely more ambiguous than the English “when”, but since it’s a lullaby, you kinda have to assume that perhaps it’s leaning more on the positive side, because who on earth would want their baby to die in their sleep?

    If Germans really were this cruel, they would have been wiped off the face of the earth a long time ago.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    because who on earth would want their baby to die in their sleep?

    actually, this exact thought was really calming to me when i was a kid (yes, the song was sung to me too):

    if i die, at least i die in my sleep, where i wouldn't really be aware of it anyways, so i don't have to care about it. it's like, every human has to die sometime, but at least it can be in your sleep. and there's nothing you can do about it either, so you don't have to worry about it.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    Since the song is quite old and "when" is the older meaning, there is a point to make about the intended meaning. What I took issue with was calling it a mistranslation and at least by now I think we agree it's not

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