“Der Kommissar (Part 2)” by Falco

"Der Kommissar" started out as somebody else's song. Producer Robert Ponger wrote the music with Reinhold Bilgeri in mind, and only after Bilgeri turned it down as too soft did Falco take it over, recording it in 1981 and reworking it for his 1982 album Einzelhaft on top of an instrumental that was already partly mixed down.

The hook gave him pause. It sounded too close to the bass hook of Rick James' "Super Freak", which Ponger had borrowed after that record came out earlier in 1981, so Falco wanted "Helden von heute" on the A-side, while the record company pushed for "Der Kommissar", sure it had more potential. The song went on to top charts across much of Europe and did well in North America, even though After the Fire's English-language cover fared better in other countries in 1982.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.