I've been meaning to make a Kurt Weill topic forever but have never gotten around to it because I'm ignorant about uh opera shit. Actually that's kind of misleading since opera generally gives the impression of you know three-day arias belted out by large women while Weill's stuff is short, extremely tuneful, and draws on jazz and folk music as much as on classical stuff. It's not exactly just opera for dummies though since he started out an atonal modernist of the vienna school and even the 'poppier' works that made his name have a distinctively acerbic sound to them. They are also extremely political and Weill's communist views were one of the reasons he wrote off more abstract intellectual stuff for a kind of warped populist approach. This means he was written off for a while by the ~classical establishment~ as a panderer etc but recently there's been kind of a revival of his work as more people realised how distinctive and deceptively sharp his sound was, not so much anti-modernist as modernism taken in another direction.
So yeah that's all good but one of the reasons I think he's important to know about is because in many ways this is SECRET POP MUSICKS OF 20TH CENTURY. Like Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Randy Newman and a ton more have pointed him out as a huge influence because he wrote kind of street-level music that was deliberately composed to be played and sung by amateurs for added rawness but was extremely cutting at the same time. Here's an example, the 'Ballad of Immoral Earnings' from The Threepenny Opera:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py96foNJny0&feature=related. Most of the lyrics I could find in English are heavily bowlderised and wimpy (the original is about a gangster and prositute fondly reminiscing about their abusive relationship, while the translations are straight-up love songs!). Here they are from the play though (actually taken from cristina monets insane newwave version but they're the same!):
Quote:
There was a time, now very far away
When we set up together, I and she
I had the brains, and she supplied the breast
I did her right, and she supported me
A way of life then, if not quite the best.
And when a client came I'd climb out of our bed
And treat him nice, and go and have a drink instead.
When he paid up I would address him: "Sir
Come any time you feel you fancy her."
That time's gone past, but what would I not give
To see that whorehouse where we used to live?
That was the time, now very far away
He was so sweet he bashed me where it hurt.
And when the cash ran out the feathers really flew
He'd up and say: I'm going to pawn your skirt.
A skirt is nice, but no skirt is OK too.
He had his cheek, he kept me locked away all day
But came the night he brought acquaintances to play.
If I'd object he'd knock me headlong down the stairs
I had the bruises off and on for years.
That time's gone past, but what would I not give
To see that whorehouse where we used to live?
That was a time now very far away
Not that our state seems much improved today
When afternoons were all I had for you
I told you she was generally booked up
(The night's more normal, but daytime will do)
Once I was pregnant, so the doctor said
So we reversed positions on the bed
You thought your weight would make it premature
But in the end we flushed it down the sewer
That could not last, but what would I not give
To see that whorehouse where we used to live?
The lyrics are by the legendary communist playwright and theorist Bertolt Brecht, who wrote the librettos for Weill's scores for the operas which made them famous: the Threepenny Opera and the Rise And Fall of The City Of Mahagonny. Brecht was an interesting guy in his own right but we won't get into that here!
Incidentally, here's an instrumental version where you can hear Weill's distinctively acidic way with a melody and unusual instumentation (banjos, folk and jazz instuments) more clearly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARfumOj5GLw .
Weill's most famous song is Mack The Knife, about the same character from the previous song: the vicious mob boss Mackie, in some ways Brecht's mocking symbol of capitalism (he murders and exploits to get wedding furniture for his bourgeois fiancee, but is obsessive about the etiquette of his henchmen and wears spotless kid gloves. idk its been a while!!). The song was also bowlderised when it was made famous by the likes of Bobby Darin, which isn't surprising as the original includes lines about murdering women and raping a yound girl. You can hear a version of it here done by Weill's wife Lotte Lenya, who he wrote many of the parts expressly for. Lenya is iconic in her own right because of her raw untrained vocal style, she also played the villain in From Russia With Love I think. Anyway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPG9GcykPIYQuote:
And the shark, he has teeth
And he wears them in his face
And Macheath, he has a knife
But the knife you don't see
On a beautiful blue Sunday
Lies a dead man on the Strand
And a man goes around the corner
Whom they call Mack the Knife
And Schmul Meier stays missing
As do some rich men
And his money has Mack the Knife,
On whom they can't pin anything.
Jenny Towler was found
With a knife in her chest
And on the wharf walks Mack the Knife,
Who knows nothing about all this.
And the minor-aged widow,
Whose name everyone knows,
Woke up and was violated
Mack, what was your price?
And some are in the darkness
And the others in the light
But you only see those in the light
Those in the darkness you don't see
But you only see those in the light
Those in the darkness you don't see
This song was SMASHHIT in those days, incidentally, and has been covered by evveryone from Louis Armstrong to Westlife (most of the cover versions leave out the rape bit tho). This actually ties into an interesting aspect of the play as a whole: Brecht had intended to use Weill's melodys to get leftist social critique to the audience, but his lyrics have pretty consistently forgotten and altered in favour of the tunes. Even in his day most of the fans were upper-middle-class burghers who just liked the songs. This possibly led to the more direct agitprop approach he was to pick up for his later plays!
It's not all acerbic stuff, though: willie nelson memorably covered 'september song' and there's also the excellent 'surbaya johnny':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsy7uP17HLoI haven't really talked about his masterpiece Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahagonny here too much, mainly because it's best appreciated as a whole: the threepenny has shorter more tuneful songs but the mahagonny is a lot wilder and nastier and is where he really gives free rein to the acerbic modern part. I'd definitely recommend it, even without the lyrics. listen to 'havanna-lied'!! everyone listen to this song it rules
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFKV306hZjYANYWAY:
i can continue linking videos etc but really if you're interested you should pick up the soundtracks to 'threepenny opera' and 'mahagonny': they were always written to be standalone along with the play (rather than try to make a consistent whole of music/play/set etc brecht preferred to have them all somewhat self-contained and commenting on the others, in the dialectical spirit etc). The best recordings are the original 1930 cast recording of the threepenny opera (die dreigroschenoper) and the fifties recording of mahagonny with lotte lenya singing. I'd recommend buying them if you can (the threepenny one is pretty cheap and comes with an excellent lyric book in english) just to get the lyrics but if you just want the songs I can hook you up! There's a ton more cool Kurt Weill stuff (especially the 'seven deadly sins' ballet) but those two are his most well-known and best. actually another good introduction is 'lotte lenya sings kurt weill' (thats it in the havanna-lied video) where she does the seven deadly sins in its entirety as well as a selection from threepenny and mahogonny. its all good though. this is a very rough overview i'll talk about more shit later!!
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