Forget about the policies - one of the most intriguing aspects of next week's general election in Germany has been the bands, or at least the campaign songs, used by the parties to stir up the voters. Everyone knows by now that the Christian Democrats have been using the Rolling Stones song Angie, from the album Goats Head Soup, as their theme tune. But what about the others?
Well, travelling down to Cottbus last week for a rally of the new Linkspartei - or Left party - I was astonished to hear the band afterwards break into 70s British glam rock. Not just any old glam rock, but The Sweet's classic Blockbuster – the first song I ever bought (you know, the one with the wailing police siren in it. It goes 'a-wooo', 'a-wooo', etc). Admittedly, most of the east German pensioners rapidly left, but I was enthralled.
My colleague from the BBC, Ray Furlong, tells me that at another Linkspartei rally in Fürstenwalde, he discovered a Russian folk band. You have to hand it to Gregor Gysi, the leader of the Party for Democratic Socialism (PDS) - he knows how to entertain the comrades.
A quick ring round of the other political parties in Berlin established the following: the Social Democrats don't actually have an official song this time.
The liberal Free Democrats, meanwhile, claim that their campaign song is Abba's Money Money Money (can that be right? Does that mean if there is a CDU-FDP government, everyone in Germany will have more money, or less money? Or will Guido Westerwelle, the FDP's charmless leader, have all the money?)
The Greens also say they have no official song. But callers to the Green's Berlin HQ at Platz vor dem neuen Tor are treated to an uplifting burst of Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World' and Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
Just for the record, the worst band I've heard so far played at an Angela Merkel rally in Warnemünde. Angie arrived to a burst of techno music. The gripping question is, if she becomes chancellor next week, can we expect more techno over the next four years?
