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One Song/Three Versions – Mack the Knife – Music Enthusiast – At the junction of rock, blues, R&B, jazz, pop,and soul


“You are about to hear an opera for beggars. Since this opera was intended to be as splendid as only beggars can imagine, and yet cheap enough for beggars to be able to watch, it is called the Threepenny Opera.”  – Bertolt Brecht

Wikipedia: “The Threepenny Opera is a German “play with music” by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay’s 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar’s Opera, and four ballads by François Villon, with music by Kurt Weill.

The work offers a socialist critique of the capitalist world. It opened on 31 August 1928 at Berlin’s Theater am Schiffbauerdamm. The performance was a springboard for one of the best-known interpreters of Brecht and Weill’s work, Lotte Lenya*, who was married to Weill.”

The play “focuses on  Macheath, an amoral, antiheroic criminal.” (The play is, in fact, set in London.) I had always assumed that Lenya sang the tune in the original play. But no, she plays a character named Jenny who is romantically involved with Mackie. The song is sung in the very beginning of the play by a street singer. An overture of sorts I suppose.

Nevertheless, Lenya wound up pretty identified with the song. Frankly, to me her voice sounds like it could peel paint off a building. But you know, what the fuck:

I can assure you that ME has not gone all snooty and started watching German plays from the 1920s, tempting as that may be. No, of course you are aware that Bobby Darin covered this song in 1959. He did a great swingin’ version of it and I’m sure everybody who heard it said, What the hell is he talking about? He stays more or less faithful to the lyrics for a while then just starts mixing it up at the end. He calls out Lenya, Suky Tawdry and Lucy Brown, both characters in the play. (Lyrics below).

Darin recorded the song in three takes, performing the song with an up-tempo bouncy beat and modulating up a semitone every verse starting with the third verse, from B-flat to B to C to D-flat to E-flat. No less a personage than Frank Sinatra called it the definitive version. Dick Clark said the rock audience would not dig it. He was wrong.

Here’s Bobby lip-syncing:

Last but not least, Louis Armstrong. (You can also find a Lenya/Armstrong version. Ella Fitzgerald does a nice version too.)

*Lenya starred in the 1963 Bond film From Russia With Love back when Bond films almost seemed plausible. Big fight scene here with knife in shoe. Spoiler alert – Bond does not die.

Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
And it shows them pearly white
Just a jackknife has old MacHeath, babe
And he keeps it, ah, out of sight

You know when that shark bites with his teeth, babe
Scarlet billows start to spread
Fancy gloves, oh, wears old MacHeath, babe
So there’s never, never a trace of red

Now on the sidewalk, huh, huh, whoo sunny morning, un huh
Lies a body just oozin’ life, eek
And someone’s sneakin’ ’round the corner
Could that someone be Mack the Knife?

There’s a tugboat, huh, huh, down by the river don’tcha know
Where a cement bag’s just a-drooppin’ on down
Oh, that cement is just, it’s there for the weight, dear
Five’ll get ya ten, old Macky’s back in town

Now did ya hear ’bout Louie Miller? He disappeared, babe
After drawin’ out all his hard-earned cash
And now MacHeath spends just like a sailor
Could it be our boy’s done somethin’ rash?

Now Jenny Diver, ho, ho, yeah, Sukey Tawdry
Ooh, Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown
Oh, the line forms on the right, babe
Now that Macky’s back in town

I said Jenny Diver, whoa, Sukey Tawdry
Look out to Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown
Yes, that line forms on the right, babe
Now that Macky’s back in town
Look out, old Macky’s back

 

 

 



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