Viral hit
“Barbara’s Rhubarb Bar 2” – Bodo Wartke and Marti Fischer follow up
Because of the international success of “Barbara’s Rhubarb Bar”, Bodo Wartke and Marti Fischer have now added another song
© Screenshot YouTube / Bodo Wartke
Because of “Barbara’s Rhubarb Bar,” Bodo Wartke and Marti Fischer can look forward to the viral hit of the summer – internationally. The whole world is now dancing to the song. Can the success be continued with the second part of the Barbara saga?
Bodo Wartke and Marti Fischer needed a whopping 78 attempts to record the second Rhubarb-Barbara song. The music cabaret artist writes this down Tiktok. There – and on other platforms – the duo recently published the continuation of the story about their song heroine Barbara. The approximately two-minute one-take actually seems a bit strained, which is not surprising given the complex text.
Singing along to “Barbara’s Rhubarbbar 2” is also complicated
Basically the song is about the rhubarb bar and the three barbarians who are regular guests there. Because of them and the Barbarian Beard Barber, who are guests almost every evening, Rhubarb-Barbara needs a counter worker and hires Bärbel. The men court Rhubarb-Barbara-Bar-Barbarenbartbarbier-Beer-Bärbel, but she shows no interest.
Instead, Bärbel falls in love with Rhubarb-Barbara and the two get married. Later, Master Adebar (a stork) brings the two a child – Emily. The song ends with it remaining unclear whether Bärbel and Rhubarb-Barbara’s daughter will take over the bar. After all, she is the Rhubarb-Barbara-Bar-Barbarenbeard-Barber-Beer-Bar baby.
Anyone who stumbles while reading the text shouldn’t be surprised why Wartke and Fischer needed 78 attempts to get the text right. The picture above shows the two of them after the successful run – you can see that Wartke (left) can hardly believe his luck.
“Barbaras Rhubarbbar 2” also contains a little Easter egg, because in the first part of the song the two sing: “Barbarians know what rhubarb is. Ww-know what rhubarb is!” – which probably intentionally sounds a lot like the song “Chabos know who the Babo is” by rapper arrest warrant. Marti Fischer had the song eleven years ago Jazz version covered what the rapper himself publicly celebrated at the time.
Viral tongue twister
Where the story of Barbara’s rhubarb bar ultimately comes from cannot be clearly clarified. Long before it became a viral hit, the tongue twister appeared in a wide variety of publications, including linguistic works. The pun has even appeared in a Mickey Mouse comic. It is simply a classic of speaking training.
Wartke is not the first artist to play with the tongue twister, but he can rightly claim to be the first person to help the German word game achieve international success. Thousands of people are currently dancing to “Barbara’s Rhubarb Bar” on social networks – and it remains to be seen whether the success will continue unabated.