The Evolution of a Song: Exploring Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera and the Popularization of “Mack the Knife”

Those alive in the 1980s may be familiar with Mac Tonight, a fictional character created for promotional materials for McDonalds. Mac Tonight was specifically created to draw crowds to McDonalds restaurants for after 4:00 PM dinner business. The riff on “Mack the Knife” had “a tremendous consumer recall effect,” enticing new crowds to McDonalds restaurants. [2] But how did this German song from a Marxist show find itself as a consumerist siren song? To find this answer we have to look at its origins.

Die Dreigroschenoper (Threepenny Opera) was an adaptation of John Gay’s Beggars Opera with a libretto by Bertolt Brecht and music by Kurt Weill. John Gay’s original production was not really an opera, but more of an anti-opera. Instead of the grand music and themes of 18th-century opera, the work uses familiar tunes and characters that were ordinary people. The story satirized politics, poverty, injustice, and corruption at all levels of society. The Brecht and Weill version uses light opera forms to poke fun at the bourgeoise, creating a work that offers a socialist critique of the capitalist world. Characterizing the Brecht/Weill Die Dreigroschenoper is difficult. As critic and musicologist Hans Keller wrote, the show is “the weightiest possible lowbrow opera for highbrows and the most full-blooded highbrow musical for lowbrows” [3]. Before diving into how “Mack the Knife” topped the pop charts, it is important to recognize that Die Dreigroschenoper was ambiguous in genre from its inception, being neither a musical nor an opera. This leads us to the ultimate genre cross-over, “Die Moritat Von Mackie Messer.”

“Die Moritat von Mackie Messer” (“The Ballad of Mack the Knife”) originally did not exist in the Threepenny Opera. Harold Paulson, who played the character of Macheath (Mack the Knife) insisted that a song be created to introduce his character. Although Paulson intended for the song to be for him to sing, Weill composed the song for the street singer to introduce Macheath using the traditional German Moritaten-Sänger style. These songs typically featured a hurdy-gurdy or a street organ and “celebrated the heinous crimes perpetuated by notorious criminals.” [5]. Weill used this well-known structure to protest against the moral and social norms of the bourgeoisie, with the lyrics describing the thefts, murders, and sexual assaults Mackie Messer has committed. On opening night, the street singer sang but the street organ did not play. The Lewis Ruth Jazz Band, who was accompanying the show, quickly came to the rescue, improvising a street organ-style accompaniment for the singer using piano, banjo, and clarinet [6]. Although Weill intentionally synthesized jazz and cabaret styles with light opera for the show, this fusion of the Moritat song with jazz was unintentional.

After Die Dreigroschenoper’s success in Germany, Brecht and Weill were forced into exile with the rise of Hitler. In 1938, the Jewish and leftist Weill was “labeled a composer of ‘degenerate music’” and thus fled the country [7]. As such, the Threepenny Opera opened on Broadway in the United States in 1933, although without much success—it only had twelve performances. It was later reworked with a libretto by Marc Blitzstein in 1954 to rave reviews. This version softened some of the gruesome events of “Mack the Knife” from the original German version and used simple words, which left room for musical interpretation [8]. Blitzstein’s version of “Mack the Knife” was subsequently pitched to Louis Armstrong by his producer at Columbia Records, George Avakian, to which Armstrong replied, “I used to know some cats just like that in New Orleans! Every one of them, they’d stick a knife into you without blinking an eye!” [9] Slight alternations were made from the Blitzstein text, including a shout out of Weill’s wife Lotte Lenya, who starred in the original and 1954 versions of the Threepenny Opera, and was in the recording studio at the time Armstrong made the track [10]. The addition of the brass instruments as well as the trading of solos under each verse gave the 1955 Armstrong version a more quintessential jazz sound.

It is interesting to note that some of the original Die Dreigroschenoper cast members did not want the song to be appropriated by an American, claiming that the work became a part of the “fodder of [the American] public entertainment machine.”[12] Brecht, however, felt like Armstrong’s version was legitimate because he was African-American. Brecht believed that Armstrong spoke for “a segment of American society whose exploitation by capitalism is particularly brutal.” [13] As a member of a marginalized community, Armstrong’s performance reflected the social commentary of the original Threepenny Opera.

But how did Armstrong’s “Mack the Knife” lead to the song becoming an anthem for the capitalist machine McDonalds? To find this answer, we have to look to Bobby Darin.

Bobby Darin was first known as a Rock and Roll singer with hits like “Splish Splash” and “Dream Lover”. In 1958 he decided to record “Mack the Knife” to show that he could sing more than just Rock and Roll; but he was hesitant to have the record released as a single because he feared it would ruin his brand [14]. He was convinced to release it as a single and much to his surprise it stayed at number one on the Billboard charts for nine weeks, sold two million copies, won Grammy Record of the Year and subsequently earned him the Grammy for Best New Artist and was eventually inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Darin’s “Mack the Knife” catapulted the song into a commercial success, something that Armstrong’s 1955 version did not accomplish. One reason why Armstrong’s version may have failed to reach the same height’s as Darin’s is because at the time of its release, “radio stations throughout the country had banned [Armstrong’s] version because of the gory lyrics,” however, stations regularly played the newer Darin version [15]. Why Darin’s version was deemed appropriate over Armstrong’s version with nearly identical lyrics is unclear. Regardless, it is ironic that Armstrong’s version—which, according to Brecht was a true representation of the original ideals of Die Dreigroschenoper—would pale in success to Darin’s version which was made to expand his brand and commercial reach.

Darin’s version is a direct evolution of Armstrong’s 1955 recording, including the shout out to Lotte Lenya, which was Armstrong’s original idea. This version “modulate[s] a half-step upwards with [almost] every stanza”—unlike all previous versions which stayed in the original key of C—working toward a musical frenzy which ends on a final money note [17]. Additionally, Darin’s use of extra words and personification of the text creates a more characteristically pop sound, diverting the song further from its stage roots. This record rebranded Darin as a swinging crooner and rebranded “Mack the Knife” as a chart-topping hit, miles away from its original inception in the socialist work Die Dreigroschenoper.

After Darin’s record-breaking hit, “Mack the Knife” was covered by numerous artists, including Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Michael Bublé, Bing Crosby, the Doors, Bill Haley and the Comets, Johnny Hodges, Peggy Lee, Lyle Lovett, Liberace, Les Paul, Oscar Peterson, Sonny Rollins, Frank Sinatra, and Sting [18]. Ella Fitzgerald’s live performance of “Mack the Knife” won two Grammys for Best Female Vocals and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

While Darin’s version grows in intensity “and begins to peak around the fifth stanza”, Fitzgerald also creates increased musical activity toward the fifth stanza, improvising the lyrics [20]. In this version, Fitzgerald forgets the words (intentionally or not) and lists other previous Mack singers, even impersonating the characteristic ventricular phonatory style and trumpet stylings of Louis Armstrong, ultimately riffing on the evolution of “Mack the Knife” itself. It is evident in Fitzgerald’s version of “Mack the Knife” that the song is no longer a criticism of the dirty dealings of the bourgeoise, but instead an archive of the commercial success of jazz greats.

Some critics have said that the evolution of “Mack the Knife” has caused it to lose its validity. Music critic Theodor Adorno stated that “At one time, the tune had critiqued the bourgeois audience…but now it was only a joke.” [21] But does that mean that the song is no longer valid? I would ask that to the person who pitched McDonald’s the idea of Mac Tonight, or the dozens of celebrated artists who have recorded the song. It has become an anthem of the capitalist bourgeois, selling burgers and records by the minute, becoming the thing it so staunchly criticized. In an even more ironic turn of events, the Mac Tonight image has become “associated with alt right language and imagery, including explicit white supremacist imagery.” [22] Originally created by a Marxist (Brecht) and Jewish man persecuted during World War II (Weill) to highlight social inequity, Mac(k) has evolved to symbolize supremacists and degrade those less privileged. In this cyclical way, its evolution makes it more grotesquely valid than ever.

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Cheal, David. “The Life of a Song: Mack the Knife.” The Financial Times, January 15, 2016.

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"Ella Fitzgerald - Mack The Knife." YouTube video. 4:03. "SweetGeorgiaPeache." May 8, 2010.

Ferran, Peter. “The Gestus in the ‘Ballad of Mac the Knife.’” Communications from the International Brecht Society 26, no. 1 (1997): 58.

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Guthrie, Sharon. “A Body Oozin’ Life: Resurrecting ‘The Ballad of Mack the Knife.’” Journal of Popular Music Studies 19, no. 2 (June 2007): 157–78.

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Pitts, George. “Walt Harper, A Story of Success at Home.” New Pittsburgh Courier. December 12, 1959, National edition edition.

Teachout, Terry. “Mack the Knife--Louis Armstrong (1956).” Library of Congress National Registry, 2015.