Riding home late one night (or very early in the a.m. I should say) I caught Lotte Lenya on the radio singing 'Mack the Knife' in German, the language of its author. This was not the Bobby Darin glitzy, jazzy version but was done at a much slower tempo. The combination of the tempo and glutteral German lent an air of quiet but immediate impending danger and threat to the tune while actually raised the hair on my arms and neck...