The Vocabulary of Rammstein

Rammstein has released 7 studio albums with 77 songs in total. The lyrics of the 77 songs comprise of 14,006 words in total of which 2,352 words are unique.

This is a mathematical examination of the number of words used in their lyrics. It goes without saying that the number of words is clearly an inadequate metric for the beauty, complexity or profoundness of the lyrics. This is particularly true in the case of Rammstein where play on words is a fundamental component and most lyrics are phrased so that they can be interpreted in several ways.

This examination takes the songs of the regular German releases of the studio albums into account. Additional songs exclusively released on special editions and foreign releases are ignored for the sake of simplicity.

Each word is counted once.

Du, du hast, du hast mich
Du, du hast, du hast mich
Du, du hast, du hast mich
Du, du hast, du hast mich

The opening strophe of "Du hast" comprises of 24 words in total of which 3 words are unique.

Some lyrics have been cleaned up prior to counting.

Auf dem Lande, auf dem Meer
Lauert das Verderben
Die Kreatur muss sterben!
Sterben!
Weidmanns manns manns manns Heil!

The chorus of "Waidmanns Heil" comprises of the line "Weidmanns manns manns manns Heil". In this case, "manns" [man's] is not a noun, it's not even a word. I consider it a stylization and just a repeated syllable of the term "Weidmanns", an antiquated German expression for a Jäger [hunter]. I invite you to disagree, but neglected the repeated syllables and counted 16 words in total of which 13 words are unique.

All lyrics are via Genius.

Unsurprisingly, there is a correlation between the amount of words in total and the amount of unique words in a song. As a rule of thumb, the more words in total, the more unique words.

However, the correlation is not as strong as expected, and the rule of thumb is not applied as often as expected. The amount of words in total is more alternating from song to song than the amount of unique words. Good examples show the charts of "Liebe ist für alle da" and "Rammstein". The graphs of the amount of words in total are wildly oscillating, whereas the graphs of the unique words show a more steady line from song to song.

The same principles can be applied when taking the length of the songs into account. As a rule of thumb, the longer the song, the more words in total, the more unique words. Yet again, the correlation is not as strong as expected. In fact, it is barely noticeable.

In general, Rammstein use relatively few words in their lyrics as compared to other artists and use even fewer unique words. The level of repetition is high. This is not without reason and purpose.

Rammstein strictly adheres to the traditional structures of verses, choruses and bridges in their lyrics (often inspired by classical German literature, taking cues and recalling passages of poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Theodor Fontane, and Bertolt Brecht, of fairy tales compiled by the Brothers Grimm, and of the lyrics of cabaret singers in the Weimar Republic) and do not use prose-like lyrics with little repetition at all.

Many of Rammstein's lyrics heavily rely on play of words and reversal of expectations where one word can be interpreted in several ways. This ambiguity is not factored in the number of words.

Rammstein's most used nouns are Liebe [love] 😍 and Herz [heart] ❤️.