My favorite version of Moritatensanger is Wolfgang Neuss’ warbly, pinch-voiced rendition that Ernie Kovacs so often used to comic effect on his show.
Anytime I hear any version of this song all I can hear is Steve Martin doing it on the old SNL. He sort of scatted/mumbled all the lyrics until he got to “Pearly white” which he would scream in a very throaty course way.
Sounded funnier than it describes…
I saw him do that on “Steve Martin Live,” and it’s been a running joke in my family ever since. The kicker is the way he forgets all the words and keeps repeating those two lines, then starts miming the “sharks” with his hands. Describing it doesn’t do it justice.
Gotta correct the correction …
Actually the character’s name is Jenny Diver, a name that’s referenced in the song along with her friend and fellow ho, good ol’ Suky Tawdry.
Jenny does sing a rather self-referential song called “Pirate Jenny.” Which is gorgeous and probably my favorite song in the show.
This is what happens around here when you decide that some information is extraneous.
Long as I’m here, has anybody else seen the version of Threepenny Opera that just opened in New York?
FWIW, I wholeheartedly agree with Zeldar’s recommendation.
I have the original Broadway Cast album of the 1954 Soundtrack that has Lotte Lenya but has Beatrice Arthur (from the TV series Maude) that plays Lucy Brown. The original Beggars Opera is set in London in 1837 at the dawn of the Victorian era and Weill and Brecht used it as take off of modern (1930’s) Germany (read anti-Nazi).
Another very interesting version is (BTW it was titled Die Dreigroschenoper by Weill & Brecht) is the 1995 London soundtrack recording of the Donmar Warehouse Production of the Threepenny Opera.
The play was written in 1928. As WotNot says in the linked thread, the play is not an attack on Nazism. Brecht being a socialist, the show’s main target is the middle class.
C’mon. We all know the best version was Steve Martin on SNL 
He kept mumbling over all the lyrics except when he got to “pearly white”, all the while doing the shark mouth with his pinky. Comedy gold, I tells ya!
Brecht - Weill’s *Threepenny Opera * was wriitten in 1928 and it is a takeoff of the British Beggars Opera.
FYI, an attack on the middle class was an affront to the Nationalist Socialists, who even in the late 20’s and 30’s were interested in putting down the Communists and the Jews and building up the middle and upper classes who had suffered the indignities at Versailles.
I swear I am not trying to be offensive, but this line:
left me really wondering. I know I am missing something and your Father’s Sister was not also your Mom, but I guess I am missing the point.
As to Bronx lineage – I have been out on Arthur Avenue (Dominick’s is okay, Mario’s may be more consistently reliable), and actually saw a couple of interviews with Dion DiMucci (interestingly, a re-convert to Catholicism–he rather surprisingly and eruditely cited the Epistle to Timothy in explaining his reversion to the Faith of his Italian Fathers). His account of his life on the streets of the Bronx was very neat, and the doo wop culture that gave rise to him, Darin, et al., is an interesting chapter in U.S. history.
Heh. Bobby Darin discovered rather late in his life (which admittedly wasn’t very long) that the woman he’d thought was his sister was actually … his mom.
I’m aware.
I’m sure they were offended, but it’s still not a takeoff on 1930s Nazi Germany. It wasn’t written in the '30s, and the Nazis weren’t running the country at the time. How does it go after the Nazis? Granted that I saw a new translation, but I see the play targeting anybody in the middle class who considers himself moral, law-abiding and generally swell.
There’s an excellent documentary, September Songs, which came out about 10 years ago: it intersperses an account of Weill’s life with performances of his songs by such luminaries as David Johansen, PJ Harvey, Elvis Costello and Lou Reed. Nick Cave performs “Mack the Knife” as if he were born to sing it, which he probably was.
I. Must. Hear. This.
I knew about Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife” since I heard it as a child in the 70’s. My father would play his old records. Then I heard it as the McDonald’s theme music for a series of “Mac Tonight” commercials. But when I heard Lyle Lovett’s version of “Moritat” during the end credits of the film “Quiz Show,” I thought it sounded familiar. The lyrics to “Moritat” are a lot more graphic than Darin’s “Mack the Knife.”
About the melody, while in college taking a music appreciation class, the professor Gustav Mahler’s “Symphony No.1” During its third movement, there is a variation of the song “Frere Jacques” included. It reminded me of the “Moritat” tune as well.
I apologize for the slight hijack but - the Nazis gained some measure of fame (or recognition if you will) back in 1923 and, while they didn’t take complete control of the government until 1933, they had certainly become a force. I believe that either Brecht and/or Weill were eventually chased out of Germany.
They sure did, and I’m not arguing with that at all.
They both left in 1933.
Another lover of “Mack the Knife” here. I remember when Ice-T claimed to be the “O.G.” (Original Gangsta) Later I decided that Johnny Cash was the O.G. (“I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.”) Finally, I realized that ol’ Mackie was the O.G.
On a similar note - the excellent Swiss Industrial band, The Young Gods, put out a whole CD of Kurt Weill covers : “The Young Gods Play Kurt Weill”. Their “September Song” and “Seerauber Jenny” are great, but it’s their “Mackie Messer” that I keep going back to. Pure Genius.
The CD of the soundtrack is out there, although sadly the movie itself {ignore Serva from Sweden: he’s a jerk} doesn’t seem to be out on DVD; my own copy is a battered old video taped off late-night Japanese cable years back. A shame: the performers really do perform the songs, and it needs to be seen as well as heard: Nick Cave really gets into the story of Macheath in characteristic striding and gesticulating style.