Lotte Lenya - September Song

Solomon Song - Weill/Brecht

Wednesday Weekly Weill - Le Train du Ciel

Not the version I want but a first time I found it

From "Marie Gallante"
I've been looking for a version of this since way before K got sick. Perhaps it is appropriate I found this now. But it does sound better in French...
Look-up Ute Lemper or Angelina Reaux and listen to it in the language it was written in.

Empty Frames - Nanna's Lied

Background By Kerry
Lyrics & Music by Brecht & Weill:

So post prostitution, Wiemar Deutschland, anyway...
Nanna’s Song

Gentlemen, with seventeen years
I came to the market of love
And I had been through a lot
Bad stuff happens a lot
Indeed that’s the game
But nevertheless, I have some of the blame.
(After all, I am a person too.)

Thank God everything goes by so quickly
Both the love and even the sorrow.
Where are the tears of last evening?
Where is the snow of yesteryear?
Where are the tears of last evening?
Where is the snow of yesteryear?

Of course as you go through the years
The love market becomes easier
And you embrace them by the score.
But your feelings
Grow oddly cool
If they’re rationed far too little.
(After all, any supply has to come to an end.)

Thank God everything goes by so quickly
Both the love and even the sorrow.
Where are the tears of last evening?
Where is the snow of yesteryear?
Where are the tears of last evening?
Where is the snow of yesteryear?

And also if you have learned the trade well.
In the measuring of love:
To transform desire into small change
Still is never easy.
Now, you’ll make it.
Meanwhile you become older.
(After all, you can’t stay seventeen forever.)

Thank God everything goes by so quickly
Both the love and even the sorrow.
Where are the tears of last evening?
Where is the snow of yesteryear?
Where are the tears of last evening?
Where is the snow of yesteryear?

Nannas Lied by Bertolt Brecht, English translation attributed to
I apologize, i found them on the web, and did not copy enuf, however this is it.

Tango Ballad- Cyndy & Alan

Solomon song

You saw the wise man Salomon,
You know what 'came of him.
To him the world seemed clear as day,
He cursed the sad hour that he saw the sign,
He knew that everything was dust.

How great and wise was Salomon!
Watch out the world is spinning fast
The night will fall, the price we'll pay
Such wisdom's not all it's cracked up to be,
So let us praise such clarity.

You saw divine Cleopatra,
You know what 'came of her.
Two Emperors died to serve her lust,
She whored herself to death, yes she did,
And withered into lovely dust.

How beautiful great Babylon.
Watch out, the world is spinning fast
The night will fall, the price we'll pay,
Such beauty's not all it's cracked up to be,
So let us praise such luxury.

Behold the man, the bold Macheath,
The end's in sight, I fear.
If he had kept his pretty head
And just robbed the rich, but oh no, instead
All's come to nought and turned to dust.

How sad the heart when it has won.
Watch out the world is spinning fast,
The night will fall, the price we'll pay.
Such whoring's not all it's cracked up to be,
So let us praise sweet chastity.

Threepenny Opera Act III

Threepenny Opera Acts 1 & 2

Weimar? Pirate Jenny

Auf Deutsch:

Youkali Tango - Ute Lemper - For Kerry

I started with a disordered life. I finished as a Mensch.

Wednesday Weekly Weill - Oh Heavenly Salvation

The Persuasions From September Songs. I think the Brecht/Weill piece is "Cantata"

Wednesday Weekly Weill

Moritat - Mack the Knife:

Wednesday Weekly Weill - Speak Low

Wednesday Weekly Weill - Mack The Knife

Mackie Messer - Moritat - Auf Englisch, von Ute Lemper at an Elizabeth Taylor thingy. Anyway, something to wake us up.


And something about a freakazoid and a dame.

Wednesday Weekly Weill - Youkali Tango

More 'Marie Galante'
Double click on the image to YouTube to fill your screen with this.

I will constantly return to Youkali, even though there is no Youkali, because a little fairy who lived there, granted me a grand tour...

When my ragged ship ran aground there...

The land of pleasure...
The land of desires...
The land of follies of love...
The land that doesn't exist...
But in my folly,
I return
To Youkali.

(best I can do, mostly lost in translation)

C'est presque au bout du monde
Ma barque vagabonde
Errant au gré de l'onde
M'y conduisit un jour L'île est toute petite
Mais la fée qui l'habite
Gentiment nous invite
A en faire le tour

Youkali, c'est le pays de nos désirs
Youkali, c'est le bonheur, c'est le plaisir
Mais c'est un rêve, une folie
Il n'y a pas de
Youkali
Mais c'est un rêve, une folie
Il n'y a pas de Youkali

My Ute Lemper:


I know my translation leaves much to be desired, but this is what the song means to me.

The consummate Weill songstress / chanteuse, mon Ute.

In have seen her in concert at least six times. Sometimes in the front row... And then I get afraid.

Wednesday Weekly Weill - Marie Galante

I wish I could have seen this, Youkali:


Youkali,
It is the land of our desires,
Youkali,
It is happiness,
It is pleasure-

But it is a dream, a folly.
There is no Youkali.

And life goes on, weariness everyday.
But the poor human soul
Looks everywhere to forget it,
To leave the earth,
To find the mystery.
We dream on earth
To live on some Youkali...

One More Weill - Lost in the Stars

Since y'all (save Val) blew off my post on Bilbao-Song and degenerated into a cultural exchange on the finer aspects of the Anvil...

I thought I'd give it another try with a Weill song in english by a contemporary performer.

I think the lyrics are by Maxwell Anderson. Cry the Beloved Country:

And this version by Elvis Costello is visually, tripping the light fantastic...

I order you to search for the version by the master, Tony Bennett.

Wednesday Weekly Weill - Bilbao Song

Performed by Milva. From "Happy End".
I like the nostalgia in this song. Longing for the decadent, lively, sex-blood-and-guts-soaked haunts and days of yore. I feel that way towards a number of my former haunts. They've all gone respectably fern bar now... They even have windows, now, that you can see in.

Except the Anvil.

Translation lifted from a Marianne Faithfull site. By the way, her version is very blood-curdlingly elegant.

Bill's be all in Bilbao, Bilbao, Bilbao,
Was the most fantastic place I've ever known.
For just a dollar you'd get all you wanted,
All you wanted, all you wanted
Of whatever kind of joy you called your own.
But if you had been around to see the sun
Well I don't know you might not like for you to see
The stools at the bar were damp with rye
On the dancefloor the grass grew high,
Through the roof the moon was shining green
And the music really gave you some return on what you paid
Hey Joe, play that old song they always played.

That ol' Bilbao
Down were we used to go
Da da da da da ...
I can't remember the words ...
Da da da da da da
It's so long ago.
I don't know if it would have brought you joy or grief but
It was fantastic
It was fantastic
It was fantastic
Beyond belief.

Bill's be all in Bilbao, Bilbao, Bilbao,
Came a day the end of May in '98
Four guys from Bristol came with sacks of coal dust,
Sacks of coal dust, sacks of coal dust
And the time they showed us all was really great.
But if you had been around to see the sun
Well I don't know you might not like what you've seen.
The brandy bottles smashing through the air
And the chairs flying everywhere
Through the roof the moon's still shining green
And those fog eyes all went going crazy with their pistols blazing
high,
"Think you can stop 'em ? Well, go ahead and try!"

That ol' Bilbao
Down were we used to go
Da da da da da da...
Who remembers the words ?
Da da da da da da
Something with love in it.
I don't know if it would have brought you joy or grief but
It was fantastic
It was fantastic
It was fantastic
Beyond belief.

Bill's be all in, Bilbao, Bilbao, Bilbao,
Now they've cleaned it up and made it middle class
With potted palms and aspree
Very bourgeois, very bourgeois
Just another place to put your ass,
But if you could come around to see the fun
Well, I don't know, you might not find it such a strain,
They've cleaned up all the pools of broken glass,
On parquet floors you can't grow grass,
They've shut the green moon out because of rain
And the music makes you cringe now when you think of what you paid

Hey Joe, play that ol' song they always played;
That ol' Bilbao
Down where we used to go
That ol' Bilbao
Casting its golden glow
That ol' Bilbao moon
Love never laid me low
That ol' Bilbao
Why does it hurt me so ?
I don't know if it would have brought you joy or grief but
It was fantastic
It was fantastic
It was fantastic
Beyond belief.

Wednesday Weekly Weill

"Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny" will be on PBS Dec17, with Patti Lupone & Audra McDonald. Found these clips on YouTube. Should be "Divinely Decadent"!

Wednesday Weekly Weill

Following a theme of the last week or so I give you a delightfully campy ditty performed by a certain Jeffrey Marsh.

From Lady in the Dark, "One Life To Live":