On 9 May 2022, I sang all of the English verses of Mack the Knife, Bertolt Brecht's "Der Moritat von Mackie Messer." The English version, by Marc Blitzstein, was not a direct translation but it was pretty close.

There's quite a difference in melody between the cabaret style of the German Version and the swingin' style of the Bobby Darin version.

Dave Van Ronk did a version in English that's closer to the original German.

Bobby Darin is somehow able to make mass murder sound cool. The early German recordings make mass murder sound (deliciously) wicked - only Brecht could do that.

It's fascinating to select a few recordings from the results of a YouTube Search.

Now I want to work out "Pirate Jenny," another Brecht classic.