Ina Müller: "I'm no good as a role model"

Quick-witted, profound, soulful, funny: Ina Müller (51), the North German show talent, turns two talents into gold: her albums are award-winning, her talk show "Inas Nacht" on ARD and NDR is cult. Now the northern light is going on tour with her sixth, very personal studio album "Ich bin die".

How did you approach the new album? Did you go to a desert island to write the lyrics?
Ina Müller: I actually go to an island to write. But not to look for content. I collect the topics over the year. I flew to Fuerteventura in January to write lyrics and stayed in an English hotel there.

Do you write the lyrics first or the melody first?
Always the lyrics first. I also like to throw melodies away from time to time, so melodies only come after the lyrics are written.

Your new song "Wenn Du jetzt aufstehst" is about old age. Is that a topic that annoys you?
I'm concerned with the process of getting older. It just feels different when you're over 50 than when you're 20. I often find that when I meet up with my circle of friends, the first person sits down and starts making noises - and bang - you're on the subject! "Oh, is it your back?" With people of the same age, you immediately get to the clinical picture. It used to be different. We used to talk about our sex lives and what was going on at parties.

You are a successful woman in show business, do many younger women see you as a role model?
Yes, but I reply to women who write to me: "Listen, thanks for the praise, but I'm no good as a role model." I've always said that because I have too many vices that you shouldn't have at my age, even as a woman. I don't fit the standard female model and I don't play the "family, children, I eat vegan" game. I do the opposite of everything.

What do you prefer, singing or presenting?
I love the variety. Now that the new shows have been recorded, I'm looking forward to singing. It would put a lot of pressure on me if I was only passionate about one thing.

Your new song "Bei jeder Liebe" is about falling in love serially.
I think that's the strongest lyric on the album. How you think at 18: "This is the love of my life now!" Four years later you think again: "This is the one now!", and then four years later you meet the father of your children. You have to realize that there will never be one. Sure, there are women who meet that one person and then stay married for 50, 60, 70 years. But that's not the norm. The norm is that you meet someone ten or eleven times in your life who can be a life partner.

Ina Müller as presenter

In her talk-and-music late-night show "Inas Nacht" (see picture), she presents celebrity guests and new band discoveries. The show has been broadcast by NDR since 2007 and ARD since 2009. The episodes are recorded in the Hamburg harbor pub "Der Schellfischposten". Both the show and the pub have long enjoyed cult status.

But the song still beautifully describes the feeling that you keep hoping for: That's him!
I think nature has set it up that way. Nature injects you with so many hormones, especially oxytocin, the cuddle hormone, that you say: "It's him! And I'm so incredibly happy!" I sing in the song "Bei jeder Liebe": "And the last love will be the most beautiful, no matter where I am then, but knowing me, that's still two or three men away." That's brave, but why not?

That sounds pretty serene! At the same time, your songs also sound very romantic.
I think it's nice to be romantic and serene, that's actually a good mix. Or let's say: Detached and yet romantic. That would also have been a good album title.

In the song "Klammerblues" you say: "The memory is what keeps me here with you." Do we sometimes stick with someone for too long because we find the memory so beautiful?
I think that a lot of people who have lived together for a long time and no longer have anything to say to each other stay together because the financial situation makes it difficult to separate. They have the feeling: "Staying here doesn't hurt, but it's stale." The moment I'm describing is actually the scenario from the movie "Bridge on the River" with Meryl Streep. I always have this image in my mind's eye where the husband drives up to the house in a cattle truck and she hasn't gone after the love of her life. Oh God!

Do you still believe in love?
I'm always accused of sarcasm because I never assume that people really love each other. I believe that this can be the case, but I believe that only a very small proportion of people who have been together for 25 years still love each other deeply. I think it's just not that often. Because people are perhaps not made for it.

Ina Müller as an author: between 2002 and 2009, the North German blonde published four books in Low German, including: "Schönheit vergeiht, Hektar besteiht." (Beauty fades, hectares endure)

Yes, possibly!
I think marriage came into being at a time when there were no fridges, when people still had to flock together, when sexually transmitted diseases dominated, and clever people knew that if it wasn't always just one man with one woman, then we would die out. That was the perfect conservation instinct. But now we no longer need marriage. And this: I love you for the rest of my life, you can't say that.

But there are exceptions. Some people manage it for the rest of their lives.
Yes, there are also albino dogs - they are rare, but they do exist.

You're in a relationship with musician Johannes Oerding, but you don't live together?
Exactly.

Is marriage not an issue for you?
No. It's not an issue for either of us. I don't go as far today as I used to when I used to say: Everyone in their own town. Today I say: same city is good, but everyone in their own apartment.

In the song "Wie Du wohl wären" you think about what it would have been like to have a child. It sounds conciliatory.
Yes, that was also very important to me. I don't think it has this consternation charm. There's no bitterness in it either. I just made a song out of this moment that every woman my age knows - where you think to yourself in between, even though it's clear that you don't want to have any more children now, what would it be like if I had a child - what would it look like, would it be big, small, would it be quiet or loud, would it have blue eyes? But I say: everything is fine the way it is. I simply decided to pursue my career.

Are you planning another Low German album after your 2017 tour?
It's funny you should ask me that, Nina. I've actually already thought about it. But maybe I'll go to the Ukraine to detox first.

INA MÜLLER
Fri 24.3.17, Club Hallenstadion Zurich
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