October 26, 1959. Forget about gangster rap. If you want a hit song praising murder and mayhemlook at "Mack The Knife," performed by Bobby Darin. It reached Number One on the charts today. Originally "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer," the song appeared in The Three Penny Opera, in 1928, written by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.
While Darin's pop version left out the verses about child rape and the woman stabbed in the chest, he did warble enthusiastically about "a body oozing life," and someone being dumped into the water with a bag of cement.
Ah, for the innocence of the 1950s.
Hmmmm....Looks like Mackie's back in town!
ReplyDeleteThe original German run of The Three Penny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) was interrupted when Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill were forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1993.
ReplyDeleteBut wait! There’s more!
The Three Penny Opera derived from a 1728 work, The Beggar's Opera, by John Gay. Mack was a highwayman, Captain MacHeath.