German cannibal inspires Rammstein
The German cannibal's story has inspired rock band Rammstein to churn out Mein Teil, which is second on the German charts.
It will inevitably result in a book and a film, but the story of Germany's cannibal has already brought a summer chart hit to the country's masters of the macabre: the hard rock band Rammstein.
"He loves me so much he could eat me. The soft and the hard parts are all on the menu, it's so good with seasoning and flambed," go the not so subtle lyrics of Rammstein's Mein Teil, or My Part.
For those who may have forgotten, Armin Meiwes was jailed in Germany in January for more than eight years for killing and eating a willing victim: both of them tried to eat the man's dismembered penis before he died.
The story of the "cannibal of Rotenburg" was manna from hell for the group's singer, Till Lindemann: "It's so sick that it becomes fascinating and there just has to be a song about it," he said recently.Mein Teil rocketed into second place in its first week in the charts in Germany after its release in early August, before slipping down to sixth place by the middle of the month.
The video clip, which shows the musicians held on a leash by a transvestite and rolling around in mud, has sparked heated debate and is only being aired by music television channel MTV after 11:00 pm.
A few other stations have been giving day-time airings.
But controversy is not new to Rammstein, which, with an extra 'm takes its name from the site of a 1988 aircrash in which 70 people died.
The six piece group from Hamburg, northern Germany came together in 1993 and their particular fusion of industrial and progressive rock and heavy metal have made them one of the better-known bands abroad.
