Jackie White

The Little Black Rammbook by Jackie White

From Exeter to Hard Rock: The surprising uses of a German degree

Jackie White (née Payne) graduated in German from Exeter in 1983. This was the start of a twenty-seven year journey that was to end with the writing of a book on one of the most controversial hard rock bands to emerge from Germany in the 1990s: Rammstein.

Jackie had a successful stint in the Royal Air Force that included interpreting for NATO, before working for the likes of Jaguar and Land Rover.  However in recent years she found that she was using her German less and less, yet longed for a project to keep involved with the language.
 
An unlikely viewing of her teenage son’s MTV chart list included the band Rammstein that sang in German, had sold 12 million albums around the world, yet no-one had ever heard of.  Their English speaking fans were relying on poor literal translations of lyrics to understand what the songs meant.  Jackie explains, “I found the lyrics interesting, and wanted to share them with a wider audience.  They reminded me of the medieval German masters I’d read at Exeter, So I wrote a book that explained about the history, language and translated key songs, so fans would not miss out.”
 
The Little Black Rammbook is available on Amazon.  Jackie is also building an international following on Twitter (@whitejax), tweeting on all things German.



Date: 18 October 2011