Let's have a brief history of Bobby Darin's Mack the Knife. Its origins are in Die Moritat von Mackie Messer, The Ballad of Mack the Knife (1928), music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Bertolt Brecht, from Die Dreigroschenoper, The Threepenny Opera. A moritat is a murder ballad, and Mack the Knife is a killer.
The strict English translation of the first verse is:
And the shark, it has teeth,
And it wears them in the face.
And Macheath, he has a knife,
But the knife can't be seen.
The lyrics are concise and factual, like a police report...nothing to see here, folks. In 1954, Marc Blitzstein dressed them up a bit:
Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear,
And he shows them pearly white.
Just a jack-knife has Macheath, dear,
And he keeps it out of sight.
Bobby Darin dressed the lyrics up even more, as his addition of 'babe' and other vocal flourishes added a hip Vegas feel to it:
Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear,
And it shows them pearly white.
Just a jackknife has old Macheath, babe,
And he keeps it, ah, out of sight.
The original song is a basic narrative about a murderer. Bobby Darin elevates it to a virtual celebration, singing it so enthusiastically that Mack becomes a heroic figure. Musically, the tone rises a half step with nearly each verse, and the orchestration builds along with it, all leading to a big frenzy of sound by the end:
Look out, old Macky's back!
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