#and hey my german language skills are music based and borderline nonexistent so if I made a mistake...I am sorry

[terrainofheartfelt]

hi hi hi allow me to talk @ you about this song because it's soooooooooooo!!!!!

okay so, full disclosure the Josephine bit I didn't even put together was for you until I listened to the playlist a second time lol but that's BECAUSE I was too busy going feral about his references to Beethoven.

So like the Josephine bit is to allude to both Beethoven & Napoleon. Napoleon the reference is obvious because he married a Josephine but BEETHOVEN.

he lived and died a bachelor, and as you could probably guess, many musicologists have speculated as to why. but. BUT.

there's this letter Beethoven wrote, these love letters, or like, one love letter in 3 parts, with some of the most romantic german prose to exist like you read it and you're like "the FUCK?!?!? LUDWIG?!?!?!?" like,

wo ich bin, bist auch du mit mir, mit mir und dir rede ich mache daß ich mit dir leben kann wherever I am, there you are with me, and talk with me so that I can live with you

die Liebe fordert alles und ganz mit Recht, so ist es mir mit dir, dir mit mir Love demands everything, and so rightly. So it is for me with you, and you with me.

Deine Liebe macht mich zum glücklichsten und zum unglücklichsten zugleich. Your love makes me the most happy and the most unhappy at the same time

sey ruhig – liebe mich – heute – gestern. be calm - love me - today - yesterday Welche Sehnsucht mit Thränen nach dir what longing with tears for you dir – dir – mein Leben – mein alles you - you - my life - my everything

leb wohl – o liebe mich fort – farewell - o keep on loving me... ewig dein ewig mein ewig unß. forever yours, ever mine, ever ours

like fucking WHAT

and no one knows his addressee, there's no name, so we (royally) call them Unsterbliche Geliebte (Immortal Beloved). But, many music historians have done a lot of detective work and posed many a theory as to who the Immortal Beloved might be, and the most credulous and supported and popular theory is that her name is Josephine Brunsvik, who was married to another man and therefore unavailable to be with Ludwig in any lasting way. but of course, all history has to go on are these unaddressed, and perhaps unsent letters.

and then in the 21st century Frank fucking Turner has the AUDACITY to write in the bridge to this song:

I wrote all of these letters to my Immortal Beloved and you're the only one who's ever gonna know what they mean

and it makes me *dan humphrey scream into pillow*

and THAT is one of the reasons I love his mind so much

JOSEPHINE!!!!!