"Mac the Knife" by Berthold Brecht (read as poetry)

NOT "Mack the Knife". It's a later translation by John Willett and truer to the original score. I don't know of anybody who sings all of this.

Brecht was impressed by John Gay's The Beggar's Opera of 1728 and wrote his own musical version in German, Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) in 1928. Like the original, it is set in London. Macheath, presumably, is a cockney.

There's an epidemic of knifings amongst London teenagers, yet Mack the Knife is popular and sung as a jaunty little number. If you listen the Brecht sing it, you realise it wasn't intended that way. He's become a folk-hero. We accept that he's a thief and a murderer, so why should it come as a surprise that he's a child-rapist too? Why leave that out?

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• mack
• knife
• Berthold
• Brecht
• John
• Willett
• poem
• poetry

[thallassocracy]

I was slow discovering You Tube - so this is the first time I've noticed you read Brecht.

Brecht is interesting: essentially an easy poet that nearly everybody still contrives to get wrong (as you observe in your notes).

Edward Thomas, John Donne, and Wilfred Gibson all have the same knack. Perhaps people really don't want to hear what they are saying.

Stating the obvious in a way people have trouble not hearing is a very special gift. It is among the many things I value you for.