Final Word from Thursday, October 3, 2019

We last wrote about Karel Gott 10 years ago, and, upon his death on Tues., have little to add. So we repeat now what we wrote on July 28, 2009.

Karel Gott, a much-admired crooner who just turned 70, told Radio Impuls that singers and songwriters try to make the world seem a better place by painting a pretty picture in song. The reality, he said, is a cruel world where the law of the jungle rules. All wars have been economic in nature, he added, and it has never been a question of good prevailing over evil. By studying history, he said, he's lost many of his illusions. What is instructive, he said, is how things turned out the way they were supposed to according to a pre-written script. Gott, a long-time conspiracy theorist, told LN magazine way back in 2001 that all small banks will go bust and that the others will keep merging until there's only one left. Some day, he said, we might look back on the totalitarian regime of the past with nostalgia. Some people see Gott as a prophet of what is to come. Others wish he would stick to song. [ Czech Republic Lidové noviny Lidovky ]