I’m in the little brown painted loft room, headphones on, my microphone stacked on top of both of Peter Guralnick’s books on Elvis, recording this week’s episode of Late Junction for BBC Radio 3. My producer Silvia is on the line listening for hiccups, frogs, stutters and mispronunciations. It’s a coffee special, with songs about cups of Joe, caffeinated electronic music, percolating jazz. Next up: Can’s ‘Bring Me Coffee Or Tea’.
“Some of you might know this one”, I say. “It’s from their first album with the late Damo Suzuki on vocals, recorded and released in 1971. The story goes that band members Holger and Jaki were drinking coffee at a table outside a local bar in Munich when they spotted Damo walking across a four-lane road, singing at the top of his voice. Holger said to Jaki, ‘That’s our new singer.’ This is ‘Bring Me Coffee Or Tea’, from Tago Mago.”
Only I don’t finish the link, because is it pronounced Taygo Maygo, or Taggo Maggo? I’ve heard this album enough times, half of it is hardwired in my brain, why do I not know how to say it? As is always the case with radio pronunciation for a national broadcaster, the weight of the situation is enough that, once I’ve stumbled, my brain punches down to doubt programming, and I need outside verification. I’ve infected Silvia with my doubt and now she isn’t sure either. Google isn’t much help; I don’t trust its auto generated pronunciation at the best of times, and it’s too late to go to the BBC pronunciation department, whose specialisms are actual names not iconic Krautrock albums.
It’s actually an islet in Ibiza, Silvia says, as she enters an internet wormhole, so we should go with the Spanish pronunciation. They’re a German band though, I say, doesn’t that mean it’s the way a German would say it? I’m going to message Jimmy, I say. He’s been on the scene for approximately 650 years, works in a record shop where people fill their time having it out about this kind of thing, and he also won a TV gameshow due to his music knowledge. ‘I’ve got a krautrock emergency Jimmy,’ I say. ‘Do you say it ‘Taggo Maggo’ or ‘Taygo Maygo’?’
He is a true friend who recognises a real emergency, and two minutes later, he replies saying that he’s always said Taygo Maygo, assuming the Mago was derived from Magus. He has four copies of this album, he says. This message is followed up alarmingly quickly with the news that this debate has now spread to the entire record shop. This is a classic type of dispute, he says, I’ve had many of these in my time. He tells me about the time a Joy Division superfan he knew insisted it was not Closer as in ‘come a little closer’, but was in fact Closer, as in ‘the closing one’; a conclusion.
In the meantime a third option has been uncovered: Tah-go Mah-go, but it’s AI generated and I’m too old to believe an algorithm knows anything about kosmiche. Even better, someone’s dug up information from the novelist Alan Warner, author of Morvern Callar and the 33 ⅓ book on this very album, who wrote a blog post that insisted: “Tago Mago is pronounced, slowly and in a deep voice: TAAAAGOOOOMAHGOOOOOO”
This is only making things worse.
I message John Doran, co-founder of this fine site, with the same Krautrock emergency message. He replies similarly quickly, again, fittingly for the gravity of the issue. He’s interviewed Irmin a few times and has also likely had this out with someone, somewhere, at some point in his career. He is also probably going to have to say this album title out loud some time in the future, so is understandably professionally invested in the answer insofar as it will insulate him against ‘I think you’ll finds’. John says he distinctly recalls Irmin saying Tay-go May-go, and remembers because it surprised him.
Job done, I think; that’s from the horse’s mouth – verified first person account. This is the sort of material real historians and investigative journalists are satisfied with, and so I say thanks to John, mention how I was spooked by this third Alan Warner version. I shouldn’t have mentioned it, because this spooks John, too. I can tell his doubt programming has punched in. ‘This has given me pause’, he says. ‘You should ask Zoe.’
I really should have gone to her first, I think, but the idea of opening a can of krautrock worms within the entire staff of a record shop without even going in, was far too appealing.
Zoe is an oracle. I would leave votive figurines of Diamanda Galás and old Blast First CDs in tribute at her altar, if she would only build one. She is an extremely reliable fount of stellar anecdote and very good sense. I reckon it’s Taggo Maggo, she says, taking me back to square one. But let me check with them directly.
Sandra and Irmin at Spoon get back to Zoe within five minutes. They tell her that, because it’s a place, it’s an open pronunciation. They say TAH GO MAH GO. It’s a Spanish island, Zoe says.
I get back to Silvia: you were right about the Spanish island, I tell her. But is that what we said? I’m in knots now – how does a German and Japanese speaking band pronounce the name of an Ibiza islet, and as someone with a northern accent, how should I pronounce that? I often have to say the BBC pronunciations out loud in RP and then reverse engineer them into Northern. Radio people always tell you just to say it with gusto, even when you’re not 100% sure – it’s the confidence that’s important. Perhaps Alan Warner’s overwrought version is the best option after all.
I send John and Jimmy Zoe’s answer, direct from the source. It might be fairly open, I say, but in this case I’m not comforted. This just seems to mean that whatever way I say it, someone is going to correct me. Adrian Chiles could make a couple of hundred quid from this if he knew anything about kosmische, says Jimmy.
Referenced artists
Joy Division
Lumpen Revolutionaries: Lars Iyer’s My Weil Playlist
Here I have pause to think, as I often do when memory and truth come into play, of the writer Samuel Delaney’s memoir Motion Of Light In Water, where he realises he has misremembered the year of his own father’s death for years, and he finds more truth than one in the way we wear out and live in names and dates and feelings. There are truths we like, and factual truths, and it’s not always the latter we carry around with us. But then, is his name pronounced Sam-yoo-ell, or Sam-well?
I call Silvia back, clamp the headphones on, and drawl into the mic… “This is ‘Bring Me Coffee Or Tea’, from TAAAAGOOOOMAHGOOOOOO.”
