Mack the Knife

October–December 1959

Bobby Darin lived a short life (just 37 years), but he was a very successful recording artist. His only #1 hit was his version of the standard "Mack the Knife," and it was a huge hit, topping the chart for 9 weeks – as well as becoming the definitive version for many listeners.

This is an example of what I think of as "casino jazz" – that sort of swaggering, over-confident lounge singer style with lots of punchy horns and a swingin' rhythm section. But hey, if I had to listen to something in this style, it might as well be this song. I kinda like it in its own way.

But the song itself is more interesting than this particular recording of it. First of all, it seems music fans of 1959 were pretty morbid – first "Stagger Lee" and then this, a portrait of a gangster which even details a couple of murders along the way. But yes, there is a context to all this. The song, and the character, are from the 1928 German musical The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Bertolt Brecht. Weill was actually a prominent composer of classical music and opera – but despite the play's title, it's no more an opera than West Side Story. Even so, this has got to be among the closest a charting pop song has come to mingling with the classical world.

But out of context, just taken as a pop single – isn't it kind of weird to be celebrating a killer in a upbeat number like this? I guess it's just part of America's long history of romanticizing gang violence; think Godfather, Sopranos. The characters are anti-heroes, but there's something about their idealized lifestyles that we admire. Maybe it's their freedom from the constraints of society, their vigilantism, their ability to make their own rules. Hey, remind you of something? Just ask John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. Or for that matter, Han Solo. It's the same kind of escapism that draws us to many kinds of "genre" stories.

Of course, the original version of the song is quite different sounding – indeed, it's in German (gotta love those trilled R's). The singer, who sounds like a cartoon villain from Merry Melodies, actually fits the song's ominous lyrics much better than Darin, to whom a life of crime is some kind of big party. The song has been covered many times, including by Louis Armstrong (whose version predates Darin's), Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and of course, everyone's favorite band, Westlife. The English-language version has become such a staple of American culture, it's easy to forget its German origins.

But of all the recordings of "Mack the Knife" throughout history, the hands-down greatest and most moving version has got to be this one. You can thank me later.

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