“Bitte bitte” — printed “Bitte, bitte” on the CD, German for “please please” — is the eleventh track and third single from Die Ärzte’s 1988 album Das ist nicht die ganze Wahrheit…. The lyric is about wanting to obey a dominatrix. Putting that at the center of a pop-rock single was blunt. A Domina Mix later appeared on Das Beste von kurz nach früher bis jetze.
The video is set in a dystopia-like censoring facility that looks like a factory, ruled by a dominatrix. Products run through smoothly until Ärzte LPs hit the line — those records will not go into the monstrous machine the way they are supposed to. The joke fits the band: state or industry censorship as a plant floor, a woman in charge of the cruel assembly line. The image matches the song’s subject instead of pretending the single is only a joke title.
The regular single pairs “Bitte bitte” (Urlaub), 3:13, with “Gabi gibt ‘ne Party” (Urlaub, Felsenheimer), 3:10. The maxi adds “Bitte bitte (Domina Mix)” at 7:35, the 3:13 single version, “Bitte bitte (CBS Mix)” at 6:06, and the same Gabi B-side. Farin Urlaub sings and plays guitar and bass; Bela B. handles synthesizer and drum machine. “Gabi gibt ‘ne Party” belongs to the band’s Gabi & Uwe series and was later collected on that same compilation.
Tanzwut covered it on Labyrinth der Sinne and issued the cover as a single. Eisbrecher covered it on Schicksalsmelodien. Between the original, the Domina Mix, the CBS Mix, and those covers, “Bitte bitte” is the 1988 Die Ärzte hit that put a dominatrix at the center of a pop single and kept remixing her. For BDSM listeners the title already says it: please, please, let me submit.
