while I was looking in the thread about spooky songs, I started thinking about the song,"Mack The Knife"...

This grim ballad from Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's " Three Penny Opera" gained more popularity as a jazz tune, altered with slightly less morbid lyrics, performed by Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin, Ella Fitzgerald, and others....
In 1933, The Three Penny Opera was first translated into English and brought to New York by Gifford Cochran and Jerrold Krimsky. In the 1950s, Marc Blitzstein wrote an adaptation, cleaning up "Mack the Knife" and dropping the last two stanzas about arson and rape.

It was used as the melody for McDonald's "Big Mac Tonight" commercials in the mid -eighties...

You can hear both versions at the beginning and end of the movie, "Quiz Show"

the original lyrics,
from Weill/Brecht's "Three Penny Opera" :

The Ballad of Mack the Knife/ "Moritat" - original lyrics (Trans. from German by John Willett):


See the shark has teeth like razors
All can read his open face
And Macheath has got a knife, but
Not in such an obvious place

On a beautiful blue Sunday,
See a corpse stretched on the Strand
See a man dodge around the corner...
Mackie's friend's will understand.

And Schul Meier who is missing
Like so many wealthy men:
Mack the knife aquired his cashbox
God alone knows how or when

Jenny Tyler turned up lately
With a knife stuck in her breast
While Macheath walked the embankment,
Nonchalantly unimpressed

Where is Alfred Gleet the cabman?
Who can get that story clear?
All the world may know the answer,
but Macheath has no idea

And the ghastly fire in Soho,
Seven children at a go---
In the crowd stands Mack the knife, but
He's not asked and doesn't know

And the child bride in her nightgown,
Whose assailant's still at large
Violated in her slumber---
Mackie how much did you charge?



the 1950's jazz version:

Well, the shark has, such big teeth dear,
And he shows them pearly white,
Just a jackknife has old MacHeath dear,
And he keeps it out of sight.

When the shark bites, with his teeth dear,
Scarlet billows start to spread,
Fancy gloves, though, wears old MacHeath dear,
So there's never, never a trace of red

On the sidewalk, Sunday morning,
Lies a body oozing life
And some one's creeping around the corner,
Could that some one be Mack the knife?

From a tug boat on the river
A cement bag's dropping down,
The cement's just for the weight dear,
Bet Ya ol' Macky's back in town-

Louis Miller, disappeared dear,
After drawing all his cash-
And old MacHeath spends like a sailor --
Did our boy do someting rash?

Suky Tawdry, Jenny Diver,
Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown
Well, the line forms on the right, babe,
Now that Macky's back in town!

ooooh yeah, love it! must have 100 different versions in my record colletcion

Didnt Ella Blow the words to mack the knife Live?... but like a trooper she ad libbed it and to' it up

Bobby Darin's version is classic , Bobby had some soul in his bones no question, when Bobby darin swung... that cat swung

TheRealFiness said:[quote]Didnt Ella Blow the words to mack the knife Live?... but like a trooper she ad libbed it and to' it up

Yeah, I think everybody's kinda added their own words over the years...

I always thought this was a sick sick song. Those who sing it should be investigated by the police and seen by a shrink!!!! ha ha ha ha ha. But I love louie's and Ella's versions!!

Doesn't John Kerry look like the Moon from the old Mickey D's commercials for the "Big Mac Tonight" ads???


Smooches;)

MsMisha319 said:

Actually, I think he looks like those talking apple trees in the Wizard of Oz.

I took this Restoration drama course recently and we read "Beggar's Opera." TPO is an adaptation.

UptownDeb said:

Yup!

The jazz version is sung with such vivacity, you'd think that Macheath was a hero.

I didn't know the song was so vicious.

And yes, I have Ella's Live in Berlin version.. after the first two verses, she says "oh what's the next chorus to this song now, this is the one now, I don't know. but it was a swinging tune" and she goes on "something bout the cash" and the rest is hilarious. She eventually acknowledges "we're makin' a wreck of Mack the Knife" before scatting like hell.

it's great. Almost better without the rest of the ghastly references.

but good to know the origin.

There's some serious lyric noir goin' on there.

In the Bobby Darin version i'm familiar with, I could never understand what he said after the 1st two lines.

Thanks for that.



tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...rmusic.htm