Wunder gescheh'n

Theme

The album was written (several tracks by Nena herself) and recorded at a time when she was pregnant with twins and shortly after the death of her first child at the age of 11 months. Many of the songs focus on Nena's feelings towards her lost son and her hopes and fears concerning her unborn children. One of them, “Weisses Schiff”, is often introduced by Nena at her live concerts as one of her favourite songs. The song describes the thoughts of a person watching a ship of young and old souls sailing into the distance, expressing the hope that when her time comes, she’ll be welcomed aboard.

Title track

Nena wrote "Wunder gescheh'n" (Miracles happen) whilst staying in hospital caring for her severely disabled first son, who died at the age of 11 months. In her 2005 memoirs Nena describes the "miracle" she witnessed when a hospital physiotherapist first attended to him when he was several months old. "Obviously this cleared a lot up inside him," she wrote, "because very suddenly he began to moan pleasantly and then a longer extended deep sigh came out of him. For a “normal” mother and a “normal” child nothing could be more usual but this brought tears to my eyes and I couldn’t believe it. I fell on my knees and thanked God for this moment because I was hearing the voice of my baby for the first time."

Release of the album happened to be just a few days before the fall of the Berlin Wall (9 November 1989), and Nena, still pregnant at the time, performed the album's title track at the hastily convened “Konzert für Berlin” (12 November 1989) marking this historic event. Ever since, the song and its meaning are associated with that context.

Since then Nena has constantly re-worked the song, starting with a “country” version being performed during her 1993 Bongo Girl tour. Most significantly, two different versions (one “with friends” becoming a top 10 hit in Germany) appeared on the 2002 Nena feat. Nena triple platinum album which rekindled her career in the German speaking countries. Another (heavier) version of the track appeared in the DVD Made in Germany Live in 2010 and further live versions appeared on the "De luxe bonus edition" of her 2012 album Du bist gut and on Live at SO36 recorded in 2015. In January 2016 Nena and her son Sakias accompanied the “Musical Voices S.I.E.G” choir to perform a choral arrangement of the song in a church in Sankt Augustin.

The song is a permanent feature and highlight of Nena’s concerts, the audience usually being required to sing the 3rd rendition of the chorus unaccompanied.