He Wants Sex

You want to fuck me but you can’t because I forbid it. That line from Henning May—from AnnenMayKantereit—is the whole song right there. It’s the hook on this WDR Unplugged remix they did with SXTN’s Juju and Nura for the track Er will Sex, and the delivery is perfect. He sounds wounded by the injustice of it, genuinely offended that desire isn’t a complete argument in itself.

The song is exactly what it promises: a conversation between people who want each other and the small negotiations that follow. Juju catalogs the performance of modern seduction—moped, unsolicited pictures, Netflix plea—and Henning counters with the paradox of actual attraction. He’s attentive, he buys her beer, he listens, he opens doors. He checks every box. And none of it matters because she decides. The song knows this is both hilarious and true.

Stripping it down to acoustic for the radio session makes it meaner. You can hear them barely holding back a smirk in their voices. The lyrics sting a little more without the production glossing them over—the give-and-take between what he thinks he’s earned and what she’s willing to trade. It’s sharp and sexual and weirdly honest about how desire gets tangled with ego and power.

German pop doesn’t bother with euphemism. There’s no shame in these lyrics, no metaphor—just people singing openly about wanting and not getting, about the rules you set and the ways you enforce them. It’s crude and direct in a way that feels rarer than it should be.

That moment where May’s voice cracks—I think about it more than I should. It’s the only note that could land there. Wounded and arrogant and completely sincere.