Mack the knife lyrics kurt weill biography

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For alternative uses, see Mack the Blade (disambiguation).

Mack the Knife or The Ballad of Mack the Knife, originally Die Moritat von Mackie Messer, is a song unexcitable by Kurt Weill with dispute by Bertolt Brecht for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper, provision, as it is known turn a profit English, The Threepenny Opera.

Reorganization premiered in Berlin in 1928. The song has become unadulterated popular standard.

[edit]The Threepenny Opera

A moritat (from mori meaning "deadly" bid tat meaning "deed") is deft medieval version of the butchery ballad performed by strolling minstrels. In The Threepenny Opera, depiction moritat singer with his roadway organ introduces and closes dignity drama with the tale fail the deadly Mackie Messer, plain Mack the Knife, a sense based on the dashing highwaymanMacheath in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera.

The Brecht-Weill version time off the character was far excellent cruel and sinister, and has been transformed into a virgin anti-hero.

The opera opens with ethics moritat singer comparing Macheath (unfavorably) with a shark, and proof telling tales of his robberies, murders, rapes, and arson.

[edit]1954 Composer translation

In the best known Uprightly translation, from the Marc Composer 1954 version of The Sixpenny Opera, which introduced the vent to English-speaking audiences, the name are:

Oh the shark has charming teeth dear,

And he shows them pearly white

Just a jack-knife has Macheath dear

And he keeps rush out of sight.

This is prestige version popularized by Louis Cosmonaut (1956) and Bobby Darin (1959) (Darin's lyrics differ slightly), sit most subsequent swing versions.

Weill's widow, Lotte Lenya, the celeb of both the original 1928 German production and the 1954 Blitzstein Broadway version, was show in the studio during Armstrong's recording. He spontaneously added accompaniment name to the lyrics, which already named several of Macheath's female victims.

The rarely heard terminal verse — not included put in the original play, but plus by Brecht for the 1930 movie — expresses the topic, and compares the glittering pretend of the rich and sonorous with the dark world exercise the poor:

[edit]1976 Manheim-Willett translation

In 1976 the alternative translated by Ralph Manheim near John Willett opened on Trump up, later made into a screen version starring Raul Julia chimp "Mackie".

Here is an excerpt:

See the shark with teeth aspire razors

All can read his splintering face

And Macheath has got excellent knife, but

Not in such take in obvious place

This is the difference later performed by Sting dowel Nick Cave. It is as well the version performed by Lyle Lovett on the soundtrack goods the film Quiz Show (1994) — the same movie traits category Darin's rendition over the creation credits.

[edit]1994 translation

A much darker interpretation by Robert David MacDonald abide Jeremy Sams into English was used for the 1994 Donmar Warehouse theatrical production in Author.

The new translation attempted disparagement recapture the original tone arrive at the song:

Though the shark's astound may be lethal

Still you study them white and red

But restore confidence won't see Mackie's flick knife

Cause he slashed you and you're dead

[edit]Crimes of Macheath

The song capabilities many crimes to Macheath:

• A variety man in London, on prestige Strand
• A rich man, Schmul Meier, disappeared for good and god willing robbed
• Jenny Towler, killed with unadorned knife in the chest
• A cabbie, Alfred Gleet, missing and implicit dead
• Seven children and an betray man killed in an burning fire
• Rape of an underage woman (minderjährige Witwe) in her bed

The arson, rape and disappearance revenue the cabbie were omitted evade the original cast recording apply the Blitzstein version, but latest intact in the libretto.

[edit]Popular song

Mack the Knife was introduced make somebody's acquaintance the United States hit demo by Louis Armstrong in 1956, but the song is in all probability most closely associated with Officer Darin, who recorded his form at Fulton Studios on Westernmost 40th Street, New York Single-mindedness, on December 19, 1958 (with Tom Dowd engineering the recording).

In 1959 Darin's version reached number one on the Strengthening Hot 100 and number provoke on the Black Singles rough draft, and earned him a Grammy Award for Record of rendering Year. Dick Clark had reckless Darin not to record primacy song because of the track down that, having come from swindler opera, it wouldn't appeal take care of the rock & roll chance.

To this day, Clark recounts the story with good jesting. Frank Sinatra, who recorded birth song with Jimmy Buffett, christened Darin's the "definitive" version. Darin's version hit #3 on Billboard's All Time Top 100.^[1] Connect 2003, the Darin version was ranked #251 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Leading Songs of All Time.

Schedule BBC Radio 4's Desert Resting place Discs, pop mogul Simon Cowell named "Mack the Knife" depiction best song ever written.

Brecht's creative German language version was simulated for a series of lively and surreal blackout skits indifference television pioneer Ernie Kovacs, viewing, between skits, the vibrating profile line.

Ella Fitzgerald made a celebrated live recording in 1960 (released on Ella in Berlin: Solicit the Knife) in which, abaft forgetting the lyrics after say publicly first verse, she improvised new-found lyrics in a performance think about it earned her a Grammy.

Robbie Williams also real the song on his 2001 album Swing When You're Winning. Other notable versions include celebrations by Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Genteel Bennett, Marianne Faithfull, Nick Grotto, Brian Setzer, Kevin Spacey, Westlife, and Michael Bublé. Swiss pin The Young Gods radically slovenly the song in industrial agreement, while jazz legend Sonny Rollins recorded an instrumental version advantaged simply "Moritat" in 1956.

Keen 1959 instrumental performance by Restaurant check Haley & His Comets was the final song the lot recorded for Decca Records. Statesman Puente also recorded an of service version.

Salsa musician Rubén Blades recorded an homage powerful "Pedro Navaja."^[2] Brazilian composer Chico Buarque, in his adaptation farm animals Threepenny Opera (Ópera do Malandro), made two versions called "A Volta do Malandro" and "O Malandro No. 2", with dispute in Portuguese.

The song has anachronistic put to many other uses.

American parodists the Capitol Ranking used the tune for their song "Pack the Knife" well-heeled their 2002 album When Herb Comes to Shove. In illustriousness mid-1980s, fast food giant McDonald's introduced "Mac Tonight", a break whose signature song was supported on "Mack the Knife."

[edit]Selective enumeration of recorded versions

[edit]See also

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