Mack the Knife

For other uses, see Mack the Knife (disambiguation).

"Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife", originally "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer", is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper, or, as it is known in English, The Threepenny Opera. It premiered in Berlin in 1928 at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm. The song has become a popular standard recorded by many artists, including a US and UK number one hit for Bobby Darin in 1959.

The Threepenny Opera

A moritat (from mori meaning "deadly" and tat meaning "deed") is a medieval version of the murder ballad performed by strolling minstrels. In The Threepenny Opera, the moritat singer with his street organ introduces and closes the drama with the tale of the deadly Mackie Messer, or Mack the Knife, a character based on the dashing highwayman Macheath in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (who was in turn based on the historical thief Jack Sheppard). The Brecht-Weill version of the character was far more cruel and sinister, and has been transformed into a modern anti-hero.

The play opens with the moritat singer comparing Macheath (unfavorably) with a shark, and then telling tales of his robberies, murders, rapes, and arson.

The song was a last-minute addition, inserted just before its premiere in 1928, because Harald Paulsen, the actor who played Macheath, demanded that Brecht and Weill add another number that would more effectively introduce his character.[1] However, Weill and Brecht decided the song should not be sung by Macheath himself, opting instead to write the song for a street singer in keeping with the moritat tradition. At the premiere, the song was sung by Kurt Gerron, who played Police Chief Brown. Weill also intended the Moritat to be accompanied by a barrel organ, which was to be played by the singer.[2] At the premiere, though, the barrel organ failed, and the pit orchestra (a jazz band) had to quickly provide the accompaniment for the street singer.[3]

  Literal translation

Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne,
Und die trägt er im Gesicht.
Und Macheath, der hat ein Messer,
Doch das Messer sieht man nicht.

And the shark, it has teeth,
And it wears them in the face.
And Macheath, he has a knife,
But the knife can't be seen.

French translation

The song was translated into French as "La complainte de Mackie" by André Mauprey and Ninon Steinhoff and popularized by Catherine Sauvage.[4]

1954 Blitzstein translation

"A Theme from The Threepenny Opera (Mack the Knife)"
Single by Louis Armstrong
B-side "Back O' Town Blues"
Released 1956
Format 7"
Recorded New York City
28 September, 1955 [5]
Genre Jazz
Length 3:25
Label Columbia 40587
Coronet KS-349 (pictured, reached Nº1 in Australia)
Writer(s) Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, English lyrics Marc Blitzstein, arr. Turk Murphy

The song was first introduced to American audiences in 1933 in the first English-language production of The Threepenny Opera. The English lyrics were by Gifford Cochran and Jerrold Krimsky.[6] That production, however, was not successful, closing after a run of only ten days. In the best known English translation, from the Marc Blitzstein 1954 version of The Threepenny Opera, which played Off-Broadway for over six years,[7] the words are:

Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear,
And he shows them pearly white
Just a jack-knife has Macheath, dear
And he keeps it out of sight.

Blitzstein's translation provides the basis for most of the popular versions we know today, including those by Louis Armstrong (1956) and Bobby Darin (1959; Darin's lyrics differ slightly), and most subsequent swing versions. Weill's widow, Lotte Lenya, the star of both the original 1928 German production and the 1954 Blitzstein Broadway version, was present in the studio during Armstrong's recording. He spontaneously added her name to the lyrics ("Look out, Miss Lotte Lenya"), which already named several of Macheath's female victims. The Armstrong version was later used by Bobby Darin.

The rarely heard final verse—not included in the original play, but added by Brecht for the 1931 movie—expresses the theme and compares the glittering world of the rich and powerful with the dark world of the poor:

Denn die einen sind im Dunkeln
Und die andern sind im Licht
Und man siehet die im Lichte
Die im Dunkeln sieht man nicht.

There are some who are in darkness
And the others are in light
And you see the ones in brightness
Those in darkness drop from sight.

1976 Manheim-Willett extension ("Moritat")

In 1976, a brand new interpretation of "Mack The Knife" by Ralph Manheim and John Willett opened on Broadway, later made into a movie version starring Raúl Juliá as "Mackie". This version, simply known as "Moritat", is an extension of the story with completely new lyrics that expound upon the tales of Macheath's trail of activity. Here is an excerpt:

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

This version was performed by Lyle Lovett on the soundtrack of the 1994 film Quiz Show. Darin's and Lovett's versions play over the opening and closing credits, respectively. This interpretation was later also recorded by Sting and Nick Cave in the later part of the 1990s.

1994 translation

A much darker translation by Robert David MacDonald and Jeremy Sams into English was used for the 1994 Donmar Warehouse theatrical production in London. The new translation attempted to recapture the original tone of the song:

Though the shark's teeth may be lethal
Still you see them white and red
But you won't see Mackie's flick knife
Cause he slashed you and you're dead.

"Mack the Knife"
Single by Bobby Darin
from the album That's All
B-side "Was There a Call for Me"
Released August 1959
Format 7"
Recorded December 19, 1958 at Fulton Studios, New York City
Genre Pop, jazz
Length 3:11 (Album version)
3:04 (Single version)
Label Atco (U.S.)
London (UK)
Writer(s) Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht
Marc Blitzstein, Turk Murphy (English version)
Bobby Darin singles chronology
"Dream Lover"
(1959)		 "Mack the Knife"
(1959)		 "Beyond the Sea"
(1960)

"Mack the Knife" was introduced to the United States hit parade by Louis Armstrong in 1956, but the song is most closely associated with Bobby Darin, who recorded his version at Fulton Studios on West 40th Street, New York City, on December 19, 1958 (with Tom Dowd engineering the recording). Even though Darin was reluctant to release the song as a single,[8] in 1959 it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and number six on the Black Singles chart, and earned him a Grammy Award for Record of the Year. Dick Clark had advised Darin not to record the song because of the perception that, having come from an opera, it wouldn't appeal to the rock & roll audience. In subsequent years, Clark recounted the story with good humor. Frank Sinatra, who recorded the song with Quincy Jones on his L.A. Is My Lady album, called Darin's the "definitive" version. Billboard ranked this version as the No. 2 song for 1959. Darin's version was No. 3 on Billboard's All Time Top 100.[9] In 2003, the Darin version was ranked #251 on Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list. On BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, pop mogul Simon Cowell named "Mack the Knife" the best song ever written. Darin's version of the song was featured in the movie What Women Want. Both Armstrong and Darin's versions were inducted by the Library of Congress in the National Recording Registry in 2016.[10]

Brecht's original German language version was appropriated for a series of humorous and surreal blackout skits by television pioneer Ernie Kovacs, showing, between skits, the soundtrack displayed on an oscilloscope.[11]

Ella Fitzgerald made a famous live recording in 1960 (released on Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife) in which, after forgetting the lyrics after the first verse, she improvised new lyrics in a performance that earned her a Grammy Award. Robbie Williams also recorded the song on his 2001 album Swing When You're Winning, and performed it as the first song after the arrival of the Queen during the Diamond Jubilee Concert in 2012, referencing Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

Other notable versions include performances by Dave Van Ronk, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Tony Bennett, Marianne Faithfull, Nick Cave, Brian Setzer, Kevin Spacey, Westlife, and Michael Bublé. Swiss band The Young Gods radically reworked the song in industrial style, while jazz legend Sonny Rollins recorded an instrumental version entitled simply "Moritat" in 1956. A 1959 instrumental performance by Bill Haley & His Comets was the final song the group recorded for Decca Records.

Tito Puente also recorded an instrumental version. Salsa musician Rubén Blades recorded an homage entitled "Pedro Navaja".[12] Brazilian composer Chico Buarque, in his loose adaptation of Threepenny Opera (Ópera do Malandro), made two versions called "O Malandro" and "O Malandro No. 2", with lyrics in Portuguese. Liberace regularly performed a variant in which he played the song successively in five styles: as originally written, in the style of a Johann Strauss waltz, as a music box, in a bossa nova rhythm, and in what Liberace considered a popular American style.

The chorus to the song "Haifisch" (shark) by Rammstein is inspired by "Mack the Knife".

Parodies

The song has been parodied numerous times. Steve Martin parodied "Mack the Knife" in his opening monologue to the premiere of Saturday Night Live's third season in 1977. In the mid-1980s, McDonald's introduced Mac Tonight, a character whose signature song was based on "Mack the Knife". There also exists a skit on the Muppet Show, where the characters play upon the sinister nature of the lyrics.[13] American political parodists the Capitol Steps used the tune for their song "Pack the Knife" on their 2002 album When Bush Comes to Shove.

Selective list of recorded versions

See also

References

  1. ↑ Friedwald, Will (2002). Stardust Melodies: The Biography of Twelve of America's Most Popular Songs. New York: Pantheon Books. p. 79. ISBN 0-375-42089-4.
  2. ↑ Farneth, David (2000). Kurt Weill: A Life in Pictures and Documents. Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press. pp. 75–78. ISBN 0-87951-721-2.
  3. ↑ Friedwald, Will (2002). Stardust Melodies: The Biography of Twelve of America's Most Popular Songs. New York: Pantheon Books. pp. 81–82. ISBN 0-375-42089-4.
  4. ↑ "Song: La complainte de Mackie". Secondhandsongs.com. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
  5. ↑ Jos Willems. "All of Me: The Complete Discography of Louis Armstrong". Books.google.com. p. 257. Retrieved 2016-08-29.
  6. ↑ The Broadway League. "Threepenny Opera – IBDB: The official source for Broadway Information". ibdb.com.
  7. ↑ The Broadway League. "Threepenny Opera – IBDB: The official source for Broadway Information". ibdb.com.
  8. ↑ Bobby Darin interviewed on the Pop Chronicles (1969)
  9. ↑ "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Singles : Page 1". Billboard. Retrieved 2016-08-29.
  10. ↑ "New Entries to National Recording Registry – News Releases – Library of Congress". Loc.gov. Retrieved 2016-08-29.
  11. ↑ "Ernie Kovacs – "Mack the Knife" Take 4, includes car dropping through floor.". YouTube. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
  12. ↑ "Pedro Navaja". MaestraVida.com. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
  13. ↑ "The Muppet Show: Dr Teeth & Sam The Eagle – "Mack The Knife"". YouTube. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
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