This is the fourth post in a series of blog posts about the album „Malers Hüs“ by Schall & Stille (Stephan). The third one can be found here (and includes a link to the previous one).
„Fish out of water“ is sung by Susanne Balg and her voice is just perfect for this song. Stephan couldn’t have made a better decision than to ask her to sing it. For me, the song is one of the best on the album and it should be on the radio. All the time.
Okay, I’m a little bit biased here, but listen how the music makes you believe it’s an easy summer tune and yet the lyrics are so deep and so much more than just a „feel good“ song that can be in the background while you sit on the sofa with a drink.
Listen once, listen twice, listen and feel as touched as I was (and still am).
If you like the album, you can buy it directly on Stephan’s website or download it from Bandcamp.
Don’t miss next week’s post despite the title: „Elude“
Hey Andrea,
first of all, a long-overdue big THANK YOU for doing this! 🙂
This time, I think I might actually have something to contribute to the story. The song, as it is now, can definitely be seen as a metaphor for how things went in my life and with my music in the late 2010s. That’s really what it ended up being about.
But that’s not how it started. It actually began with a literal fish out of water. Katja and I were walking along a deserted beach near the village of Borgsum on Föhr (where most of Malers Hüs was recorded). It was somewhere between low and high tide when we passed a lifeless fish washed up on the shore. Not exactly an everyday sight, but not unheard of either.
But as we walked on, suddenly Katja turned around, pinched me and said: „Hey look, it’s still alive!“
And sure enough, the fish was wriggling in the sand. We walked back, I took it into my hands, walked a bit into the water and put it back into the sea.
The little experience somehow stuck in my head and come evening I started doodling away on the keyboard playing the first notes of the song and singing along.
In hindsight, I think the choice of title wasn’t entirely a lucky one; firstly because it signifies something uncomfortable and most people don’t listen to uncomfortable stuff. Also, the idiom „fish out of water“ is generally used to describe someone in an unfamiliar situation – which isn’t the meaning at all here. In this song, it’s about something or someone removed from everything that they need to live a happy life.
Yeah, now that I write it – also not something people are voluntarily listening to 😉
Which of course would not have been a problem if Fedivision was still a thing. Actually I think with a little bit of selling myself (ugh) it would easily have been Top-5 material, which is why there was a plan to release „Malers Hüs“ after Fedivision and to have „Fish Out Of Water“ as my fedivision entry beforehand. That’s also why there is a cover for a planned maxi single (which you can see here: https://schallundstille.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/FishSingle.jpg). But as we all know it became clear that Fedivision wasn’t to go on and I guess that’s that.
Back at my studio in Erl, I showed the unfinished song to Suse, and she was immediately very passionate about definitely wanting to sing this. She gave it a lot of her own feeling and experiences, which I clearly remember sending shivers down my spine. As did MyLoFy’s guitar work, which makes this song – as well as the whole album – so much more than the sum of its parts.
So thank you, everyone involved! Thanks to those who listened, and of course thank you Andrea for both being part of this *and* writing about it 🙂
Dear Stephan,
thanks for writing such a long comment (longer than my original post *g*).
And also thanks for giving some context to the song.
Hope people who read this hear will appreciate it!