Mack the knife

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terrybooth
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Mack the knife

Unread post by terrybooth »

Can anyone tell me how this song got stuck in the version we are most familiar with today? It's a swing jazz standard and usually sung in a way which seems to me to deny the meaning of the lyrics.

Wikipedia doesn't help much https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_the_Knife but it does point out that it started off as a murder ballad. Louis Armstrong brought it into the popular music cannon, it seems. But I think he managed to put a bit of irony in it. Did nothing happen between the original performance and recording any the 1954 revival and Armstrong's version?
The fact that Bobby Darin bookended his version of it with 'Dream Lover' and 'Brought the Sea' seen to me to seal the drift to banality for what should be a shocking song.
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Philidor
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Re: Mack the knife

Unread post by Philidor »

You need to hear it in the original German version to understand the context. Try this version by Ute Lemper: Die Dreigroschenoper
Its too hard core for popular music tastes.

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