This article analyses music in two novels by Walter Flegel from the 1980s set in the GDR army. Flegel shows a diverse range of music involved in the everyday life of the armed forces, and this music exemplifies the way in which characters develop identities in dialogue with both official and popular culture. Classical, folk and rock styles form part of individuals’ self-expression, but also integrate them into the military institution. Flegel’s writing highlights the ongoing importance of socialist realism in the 1980s, and the multiple musical styles he presents offer a model for approaching the late GDR that does justice to the simultaneity and mutual influence that existed between varying and even contradictory styles and movements. This analysis builds on recent trends in GDR studies to rehabilitate socialist realism, while suggesting that official and institutional culture continued to influence individual identities and even popular culture into the late 1980s.