Have you ever heard of the Reeperbahn .

[Swede]

My brother mentioned it,so I googled it. Sex,drugs and rock and roll. How very European.

[progressor]

1. Also a Tom Waits song...

Around the curve of The Parrot Bar
A broken-down old movie star
Hustling and Easterner
Bringing out the beast in her
A high dive on a swimming pool
Filled with needles and with fools
The memories are short but the tales are long
When you're in the Reeperbahn

Oh, they called her Rosie when she was a girl
For her bright red cheeks and her strawberry curls
When she would laugh the river would run
She said she'd be a comedian
Oh what a pity, oh what a shame
When she said, ‘come calling’, nobody came
Now her bright red cheeks are painted on
And she's laughing her head off in the Reeperbahn

Now little Hans was always strange
Wearing womens underthings
His father beat him but he wouldn't change
He ran off with a man one day
Now his lingerie is all the rage
In the black on every page
His father proudly calls his name
Down there in the Reeperbahn

Now if you've lost your inheritance
And all you've left is common sense
And you're not too picky about the crowd you keep
Or the mattress where you sleep
Behind every window, behind every door
The apple has gone but there's always the core
And the seeds will sprout up right through the floor
Down there in the Reeperbahn

Down there in the Reeperbahn

Down there in the Reeperbahn

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. That's the place where the Beatles really took off

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. As BOC used to say...

"Don't Fear The Reeperbahn".

They really did say that sometimes, too.

[gmoney]

4. Mentioned in an Elvis Costello song

"...A girl in a window on the Reeperbahn" from Human Hands

[mrbill]

5. reeperbahn for 500 alex.......

Been there done that. In 1969 i was in Europe doing the student Eurail deal. Fellow travelers mentioned the disneyland of all "red-light" districts, the Reeperbahn, located in the port city of Hamburg, Germany.

Made a special pilgrimage to see this historic place and spent an evening walking the narrow cobblestone streets. Lots of bars with bands. lots of bars with strippers, ladies in windows, rowdy sailers, street hustlers, rumors of a donkey, beer machines, good eats from street vendors and a police station (St David's? right in the middle. Did a lot of looking , but no touching.

Wow, we didn't have stuff like this in Texas, "boy's town" will never be the same.

Wonder if there's a MacDonald's in the Reeperbahm in the 21st century.

[Atlas Mugged]

6. Not many people realize...

....that the girl on the bottle of St. Pauli Girl beer is a hooker.

I've been hitting the St. Pauli district for years, now, though I usually stay in Berlin when I'm in Europe.

It's funny, really, but all my friends in Hamburg and Berlin are older and live in the 'burbs, now. Just like here in the States. Getting them into town is something of an ordeal, too. However, we did go full tilt when the Big Ships were in the Hamburg Harbor - can't remember the year.

[Kellanved]

7. actually she is not.

The beer (a beer only sold in America, BTW ) is named after the Bremen St Pauli, not the Hamburg one.


The real questionable thing about the girl is: she is holding the beer in Bavarian mugs, in a Bavarian pose, dressed as a Bavarian. But the beer is supposed to be Frisian ... :wtf:

[Atlas Mugged]

8. What??? My German friends LIED to me????

Bomb the fuckers!!!

Not really, but they are notorious leg pullers.

I guess it's payback for the 20 years I lived in the French Quarter and frequently embellished local lore. Not that it was even necessary.