What’s striking is the lack of a perfect cadence. The song never really ends — it loops back to Am. That’s the point. Irgendwie und sowieso are not resolutions. They are the musical equivalent of a run-on sentence. Why hunt for sheet music to a non-existent song? Because irgendwie und sowieso is the most honest phrase in modern German. It admits that we don’t know how we feel (irgendwie) and that it probably doesn’t matter (sowieso). To play those chords is to give permission to uncertainty.
The Noten exist because we made them exist. They’re in the tabs you share with a friend. The voice memo you record at 1 a.m. The busker in Munich who plays “irgendwie” as four chords and a shrug. So here, finally, are the irgendwie und sowieso Noten — not as a PDF, but as a permission slip.
Am – C – G – Em – F – Fm – C – G7 irgendwie und sowieso noten
F – G – Em – Am “Sowieso war nichts für immer” (Anyway, nothing was forever)
Musically, these words are begging for a progression. Try it: say irgendwie on a falling minor third. Say sowieso on a suspended chord that never resolves. That’s why people hunt for the notes. They’ve heard the melody in their own heads — a lazy bassline, a lo-fi drum machine, a voice that’s too tired to be sad. What’s striking is the lack of a perfect cadence
Down, down-up, wait (like you forgot what you were saying).
No one ever found the full song, because it doesn’t exist. But the myth grew. People transcribed it by ear. A Reddit user named u/vergissmeinnicht posted a handwritten chord chart in r/GermanMusic. A TikToker played it on a melodrone. A jazz pianist in Leipzig claimed to have found the “lost bridge” — a Bb diminished that “feels like missing the last train.” Irgendwie und sowieso are not resolutions
Irgendwie ________ (present tense, low stakes) Sowieso ________ (past tense, no tears)