George Orwell wrote in "Politics and the English Language", about the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quote used in this title that "In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about."
Features music from Georges Bizet's "L'Arlésienne" on a number of occasions. This is appropriate since the story of "L'Arlésienne" concerns a woman who drives a man insane. Because the title character is never shown in the play, Arlésienne is now used, in French, to describe a person who is prominently (and sometimes voluntarily) absent from a place or a situation where they would be expected to show up.
In modern German, "Lieber Hammer als Amboss" (Better to be the hammer than the anvil) is a fairly common proverb.
Amongst the other records that can be seen in the shop are, "Four Saints in Three Acts", which is an opera written by American composer Virgil Thomson (written in the 1920s for an all black cast, which was ground breaking at the time); "Beyond the Sea" by Frank Chacksfield, an English big band & easy listening conductor; and a record by Annie Fischer, who was a Hungarian-Jewish classical pianist, who fled to Sweden to escape the Nazis.
The full Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quote is from "Gesellige Lieder, Ein Anderes" and is "You must either conquer and rule or serve and lose, suffer or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer" ("Du mußt steigen oder sinken/Du mußt herrschen und gewinnen,/Oder dienen und verlieren,/Leiden oder triumphieren,/Amboß oder Hammer sein.")