# "Mack the Knife" - what a weird song!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mack-the-knife-what-a-weird-song/354509>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [April 27, 2006, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mack-the-knife-what-a-weird-song/354509 "2006-04-27T20:59:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mack-the-knife-what-a-weird-song/354509/61 "2006-04-30T13:13:38Z")

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Just heard Ute Lemper do _The Bilbao Song_ last week with the Brooklyn Philharmonic! \</hijack\>

I adore this show. [Here’s a site](http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/beggar.html) that will tell you everything you need to know about the original 1728 Beggar’s Opera, including the complete lyrics. As you can see, the _Moritat_ was added by Brecht and Weill; the original starts with Peachum’s Morning Hymn (also the only piece of music that is exactly the same as from 1728). In the original, Mackie doesn’t appear until 20 or so minutes have gone by, and his first few songs are love songs with Polly. I own and highly recommend [this version](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000002ZR9/sr=1-5/qid=1146402693/ref=sr_1_5/102-5041452-8062531?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=music) with Bob Hoskins as the Beggar; it’s period instruments, full dialogue, etc.

What I’d love to see is the CD release of the Raul Julia/Ellen Greene version done by the NY Shakespeare Festival in 1976. It’s hard to find the record and Julia’s Mack was simply incredible–and the translation much better than the candy-assed Blitzstein usually used. 🆒

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