Number One Songs—Mack the Knife
It is ironic indeed that one of the most famous of all American songs is not American at all.
"Mack the Knife" was originally a German song composed by Kurt Weill for the Threepenny Opera, a revolutionary "musical/drama" written by Weill's fellow-German Bertolt Brecht.
"The Threepenny Opera is actually one of the first examples of the modern musical comedy genre. Its score...was deeply influenced by jazz, and mandates a fifteen-piece jazz combo. The opening song, 'Die Moritat vom Mackie Messer,' was written in August of 1928, just before the play's premiere, when actor Harald Paulsen (Macheath) threatened to quit if his character did not receive an introduction. Co-written by Weill and an angry Brecht in only a few hours, the theme would become the opera's most popular song." —Wikipedia
American audiences were first introduced to the play and theme song in a 1933 English adaptation and Broadway production. The show was not a success, however, and closed after only a dozen performances.
"Mack the Knife," as the show theme has been known virtually the world over for the last fifty-plus years, is the result of the 1954 Threepenny Opera Off-Broadway adaptation by Marc Blitzstein.
Blitzstein also wrote 1937's The Cradle Will Rock, a politically-charged pro-union musical directed by Orson Welles and produced by John Houseman. (In 1999, Tim Robbins, the American actor and director, told the story of Blitzstein's original production in Cradle Will Rock, against the socio-politcal backdrop of the 1930s labor movement.) Blitzstein was blacklisted by Hollywood for his self-admitted Communist sympathies and was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1951.
"Mack the Knife" arguably owes its fame mostly to Marc Blitzstein's English translation of its German counterpart, "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer."
On the strength of Blitzstein's adaptation of Threepenny, Louis Armstrong
NPR's Murray Horowitz has made the interesting analysis that Blitzstein's translation of the song into verses comprised mostly of one-syllable words (i.e. "Oh the shark has...pretty teeth dear"), allowed stylists including Darin great versatility in delivering the song. Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Dean Martin are among the many who recorded "Mack." According to Horowitz, "More versions of 'Mack the Knife' have appeared on Billboard's Top 40 than any other song."
But it was the A&R talents of Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun, and the label's legendary recording engineer Tom Dowd, that, teamed up with Darin, made the definitive version of "Mack the Knife" -- pushing it to #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1959.
Bobby Darin died of heart disease in 1973. He was just 37 years old.
Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
Ya know when that shark bites, with his teeth, babe
Now on the sidewalk...uuh, huh...whoo...sunny mornin’...uuh, huh
A-there's a tugboat...huh, huh, huh...down by the river don’tcha know
Now, d'ja hear ‘bout Louie Miller? He disappeared, babe
Now...Jenny Diver...ho, ho...yeah...Sukey Tawdry
Aah...I said Jenny Diver...whoa...Sukey Tawdry
Look out...old Macky is back!!
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made a hit with "Mack" in 1954.
