The line from the song's refrain "Über den Wolken muss die Freiheit wohl grenzenlos sein" (Above the clouds freedom must know no limits) has become a well known German catchphrase.
"Über den Wolken" was originally published in 1974 on the album Wie vor Jahr und Tag and on the B-side of the single "Mann aus Alemannia".
When he started to pursue his dream of flying himself as an adult, he could not do that in his hometown West Berlin due to restrictions imposed by the Cold War.
[1][2] The song describes thoughts and observations of a person watching a plane taking off at an airport and feeling left behind.
The German film director Christian Petzold recalls in an interview with the Tagesspiegel how he was sitting in a plane seeing it breaking through the cloud cover and this made appreciating Über den Wolken as a great song and continues to say:[4] Nie zuvor wurden Zeilen wie "Irgendjemand kocht Kaffee / in der Luftaufsichtsbaracke" gesungen.
The German journalist and writer Hilmar Klute describes the song in an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung as a smart and poetic illustration of how the big reflects in the small.
[5] Gabrielle Werth writes in the Rolling Stone that Mey's carefully composed lines let even bulky words like "Luftaufsichtsbaracke" appear elegant and light.
[7] In East Germany, where Mey could not perform during the Cold War era, the song was strongly associated with the notion of freedom.
[8][9][10][11] The actress Katrin Sass, who had grown up in East Germany, presented "Über den Wolken" as her personal song classic on the radio station Deutschlandfunk and stated:[12] Klassiker sage ich einfach dazu, weil das mich schon über Jahrzehnte begleitet.
[6] At the occasion of Mey's 80th birthday the German broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg devoted an episode of its series 30 Favoriten (30 favourites) to his songs.
Über den Wolken reached the first place followed by Gute Nacht, Freunde and a combined Dutch and French version of the song was ranked 29th.
A similar approach is used in the song Unter den Wolken (below the clouds, 2017) by the German punk band Die Toten Hosen.