Wow. Lately it seems that when I choose a song to write about, I open up so many rabbit holes I barely can find my way back to the surface. Three of my blogs from September led me to write a blog on Tin Pan Alley and the Brill Building. Then I thought I’d write about a Beatle’s song that I like, and that led into their breakup and Theatre of the Absurd. All of that pales into insignificance with what I found on the “simple, little ditty” that is Mack the Knife.

I grew up with some knowledge of this song. It was the stereotypical lounge-lizard number, with lots of “heys” and “dears.” Nothing really special. Then, when I was about 17, I came across the Louis Armstrong version of the song. That was something very special, that I thought no one else knew anything about. Turns out that I was wrong on so many levels.

The History
To start this story, I need to go back quite a ways to 1728, when something called The Beggar’s Opera was staged for the first time in London. This opera, by John Gay, was a satire based on the English love for grand Italian opera, along with commentary on the political doings of the time. It introduced us to the character of Captain Macheath, who is someone very much in the mold of an anti-hero. He is a debonair highwayman who goes through a series of events that end with him having four pregnant women, each claiming him as her husband. At which point, he declares himself ready to go to the gallows. He is reprieved, and there is (somehow) a happy ending. {Macheath is probably based upon a real person named Jack Sheppard (1702-1724) who was a notorious highwayman. He was captured and escaped from custody many times and became quite popular with the poorer folk of England.}

Now we can come forward two hundred years to 1928 when Die Dreigroschenoper  (English translation: The Three-Penny Opera) opened in Berlin. The original Beggar’s Opera had been translated by Elizabeth Hauptmann, the girlfriend of Bertolt Brecht, the German playwright. He claimed the translation as his. The music was written by Kurt Weill. (I wrote about Kurt last fall in my blog on September Song.) The plot is pretty much the same as The Beggar’s Opera, with similar political commentaries written in.

Shortly before the musical was due to open, Harald Paulsen, the actor who was playing Macheath, insisted that his character have a better introduction to the audience. So, the song Mackie Messer, or Mack the Knife was born. However, they decided not to give the song to Macheath, instead giving it to a strolling minstrel to open and close the opera. The song is in what is called the moritat, or murder ballad style. The song is accompanied by the singer playing a barrel organ, or what we might call an organ grinder. (When we lived in Germany, we saw an organ grinder, complete with monkey in Trier one market day. I do not recall the man singing.)

The Song

In the song, Macheath is likened to a shark.
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.

Ya know when that shark bites with his teeth, babe
Scarlet billows start to spread
Fancy gloves, oh, wears old MacHeath, babe
So there's never, never a trace of red

Now on the sidewalk, huh, huh, whoo sunny morning, un huh
Lies a body just oozin' life, eek
And someone's sneakin' round the corner
Could that someone be Mack the Knife?

There's a tugboat, huh, huh, down by the river dontcha know
Where a cement bag's just a'drooppin' on down
Oh, that cement is just, it's there for the weight, dear
Five'll get ya ten old Macky's back in town

Now d'ja hear about Louie Miller? He disappeared, babe
After drawin' out all his hard-earned cash
And now MacHeath spends just like a sailor
Could it be our boy's done somethin' rash?

Now Jenny Diver, ho, ho, yeah, Sukey Tawdry
Ooh, Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown
Oh, the line forms on the right, babe
Now that Macky's back in town

I said Jenny Diver, whoa, Sukey Tawdry
Look out to Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown
Yes, that line forms on the right, babe
Now that Macky's back in town
Look out, old Macky's back!!

This is just one translation of the lyrics. And this is based on the version done by Louis Armstrong. Louis (If you don’t know who Louis Armstrong is, I’ll leave it to you to look him up. He was massively important in American music.) introduced the song in 1956. Most of the people mentioned are characters in the play. Miss Lotte Lenya, however, was Kurt Weill’s wife, as well as the actor who played Jenny Diver in the original production. She was in the studio when Louis was recording, and he just put her name in. Since Bobby Darin based his version on Louis’ her name stayed in the song.

Bobby Darin came onto the pop scene with a ridiculous little song called Splish, Splash in 1958. (I’m not kidding!) He started out as a song writer, in – you guessed it – the Brill Building! He recorded Splish, Splash, and became a teen idol at the age of 22. He began singing Mack the Knife during concerts and decided to record it in 1959. This song brought him to the attention of adults.

In 1960, Mack the Knife as sung by Ella Fitzgerald won two Grammy awards. One for Best Vocal Performance, Single Record or Track, Female; and one for Best Vocal Performance, Album, Female. I must say that Ella gives it her all!

Since then, other translations have come forward, some of them very dark. This first one claims to be a word for word translation.

See the shark with teeth like razors
All can read his open face
And Macheath has got a knife, but
Not in such an obvious place.

Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne,
Und die trägt er im Gesicht.
Und Macheath, der hat ein Messer,
Doch das Messer sieht man nicht.

Except its not. This is closer:

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.

Or how about this one?

Oh, the shark’s teeth,
You can see them
Always ready to attack;
But you won’t see Mackie’s knife blade
Till you feel it in your back.

This one may be my favorite:

Though the shark’s teeth may be lethal
Still you see them white and red
But you won’t see Mackie’s flick knife
‘Cause he slashed you and you’re dead.

Mack the Knife remains another up-beat song about a serial killer, reminiscent of Maxwell’s Silver Hammer from last week’s blog. What is your favorite version of Mack the Knife? Have you ever seen The Three-Penny Opera? (I didn’t even know it was from this until I heard Roger Daltrey’s version in 1989!) Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear from you! I’ll be playing some of my favorite versions this week on my Minnich Music Facebook page, so be sure to check those out.

Until next time!

We’re coming into the Halloween season, and I thought I’d write about a couple of more Halloween-y songs. I came across Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, a cheerful little song about a serial killer by The Beatles. I had no idea when I delved into its history that this song may be the reason that The Beatles broke up!

I know, I know, that sounds like hyperbole. Besides, everybody knows that Yoko broke up the group. (Except that she really didn’t.) There were a lot of things that combined to break up the group and Maxwell may have been the proverbial last straw.

Wha?

So, let’s go back to 1967, and the death of Brian Epstein. Brian had been the manager of the group. He died, and no one knew who was in charge. Paul McCartney stepped up to the plate, but the others didn’t like having him tell them what to do. I can see the points on both sides of this argument. Someone needed to be in charge. But that someone needed to be outside the group.

Many critics have noted that by the time we get to the White Album in 1968, (actually entitled The Beatles) what we had was no longer the group as a whole. The songs are all John and the band, Paul and the band, George and the band, Ringo and the band. Each one taking charge on their song, and just playing and doing backup vocals on the others’ songs. They had ceased being a group.

This doesn’t mean that the music wasn’t amazing. Some of it is. But the group dynamic had changed
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While they were in India in 1968, Paul began writing Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. He’d hoped to include it on the White Album, but the song just didn’t make it in. Finally, while they were working on the Abbey Road album, Paul insisted that Maxwell be put on it. The others hated it, thinking it was stupid, and just another one of Paul’s “grannie” songs. Paul put his foot down and insisted they put in three days of work to get the song just right. John and Yoko had been in a car accident just the week before, and so John isn’t even on the song. Ringo called it “the worst track we ever had to record.”

A part of me can see the complaints. It has an olde-timey music-hall feel to it. This is one of the reasons that George Martin, The Beatles recording producer, in his memoir All You Need is Ears has called McCartney the best tunesmith of the 20th century. Note he said “tunesmith” not composer or songwriter. A tunesmith forges catchy tunes.  And that is exactly what Paul is best at. Catchy tunes.

What the song is about

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer is a very catchy tune about a serial killer. Really? Paul says: Maxwell's Silver Hammer was my analogy for when something goes wrong out of the blue, as it so often does, as I was beginning to find out at that time in my life. I wanted something symbolic of that, so to me it was some fictitious character called Maxwell with a silver hammer. I don't know why it was silver, it just sounded better than Maxwell's hammer. It was needed for scanning. Hmm. OK, then.

Joan was quizzical, studied pataphysical
Science in the home
Late nights all alone with a test tube
Oh, oh, oh, oh

Maxwell Edison, majoring in medicine
Calls her on the phone
"Can I take you out to the pictures
Joa, oa, oa, oan?"

But as she's getting ready to go
A knock comes on the door

Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer
Came down upon her head
Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer
Made sure that she was dead

Back in school again Maxwell plays the fool again
Teacher gets annoyed
Wishing to avoid an unpleasant
Sce, e, e, ene

She tells Max to stay when the class has gone away
So he waits behind
Writing fifty times "I must not be
So, o, o, o"

But when she turns her back on the boy
He creeps up from behind

Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer
Came down upon her head
Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer
Made sure that she was dead

P. C. Thirty-one said, "We caught a dirty one"
Maxwell stands alone
Painting testimonial pictures
Oh, oh, oh, oh

Rose and Valerie, screaming from the gallery
Say he must go free
(Maxwell must go free)
The judge does not agree and he tells them
So, o, o, o

But as the words are leaving his lips
A noise comes from behind

Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer
Came down upon his head
Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer
Made sure that he was dead

Whoa, oh, oh, oh
Silver hammer man

Wait! Pataphysical?

Pataphysical is borrowed from the writings of Alfred Jarry (1873-1907), a French writer who is considered to be one the precursors of Theatre of the Absurd. (The wild rabbit holes this blog is leading us down!) OK, Theatre of the Absurd is basically what it sounds like. Plays that are inherently ridiculous. This is a movement that started in the 1950s and is derived from the philosophy of nihilism, which is, in a nutshell, the belief that everything in life is a crock of doo-doo.  Pataphysical has hundreds of definitions. I’m going to stick with this one supplied by Miriam-Webster: intricate and whimsical nonsense intended as a parody of science.

Contractually, every song that John Lennon or Paul McCartney wrote had to bear the names of them both at this period in time. This song is pure McCartney. What is your favorite Beatles’ song? What do you think of this song? Let me know in the comments below. I’ll be posting some Beatles music this week on my Minnich Music FaceBook page this week, so be sure to check them out.
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Until next time!

​In several past blogs I have referred to something called Tin Pan Alley. I have given brief explanations of what this is, but I thought I’d go into a little more depth this week.

Tin Pan Alley refers to a specific stretch of pavement in New York City, and a specific time period. West 28th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. And from the mid- 19th through the early 20th centuries.
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At the start of this period, music copyrights were more fluid than they are now. Each region of the country had their own publishing houses and put out the sheet music for that area. Keep in mind, these are the days before radio, or even records, and most houses had a piano, and someone who could play it.
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One of the big changes that New York brought to the market was a shift to vocal music that wasn’t classical or religious. Originally, the publishers were situated in the entertainment district of New York, but eventually they moved uptown.

You may be wondering, if this is before radio or records, how did people even know about this music? There are a few ways that you could hear new songs. The publishers hired song pluggers, whose job it was to travel to stores (department stores sold sheet music as well as music stores) and perform the songs. Having a good voice wasn’t essential, what was essential was volume and the ability to engage with the shoppers
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Vaudeville

Along with the song pluggers, there was Vaudeville. Even little towns were on some sort of Vaudeville circuit. A really good example of a Vaudeville singer was Ethel Merman. Not a good singer, by any stretch of the imagination, but, whoo boy, was she loud. She could wake up someone dozing in the farthest balcony and get them excited about what she was singing. 

These performers would come to New York in the course of their travels and would come to Tin Pan Alley to get new songs. One of the most famous of these composers was Irving Berlin. Most of his music, but especially his early works, have the Tin Pan Alley feel to them.

Why was it called Tin Pan Alley?

No one knows for sure. There is a lot of speculation. The most plausible theory comes from a story about Harry von Tilzer (composer of Bird in a Gilded Cage, and Under the Anheuser Bush). Harry had modified his piano by placing paper strips down the strings to achieve a more percussive sound. A reporter interviewing him said it made the piano sound like a tin can. He entitled his article Tin Pan Alley.

When Tin Pan Alley died out is also debated. Some people say that it died out during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Others say that happened right after WWII. Bob Dylan said that he killed off Tin Pan Alley in 1985. (Seems a bit grandiose, even for a Nobel laureate!)

After Tin Pan Alley

I agree with the people that hold that Tin Pan Alley just became concentrated into the Brill Building. Before WWII, many publishers had moved slightly uptown to the building at 1619 Broadway. By 1962, the building contained 165 music businesses. While a lot of these were publishers, there was so much more there.

Last month, I wrote about a song called See You in September. It was written after lunch on a Friday. By 4:30, they had the finished song. The song was pitched to a couple of agents. But 8 pm, it was accepted by The Tempos. By Monday it was recorded and by Friday, only a week after the song was written, it was being played on the radio and was a hit. The speed of all this was made possible by the fact that everything was contained in the Brill Building. The writers worked there. The agents were there, the recording studio was there.

When Carole King wrote It Might as Well Rain until September, she worked at the Brill Building. She recorded a demo of the song to be pitched to Bobby Vee.  Later, when producer Don Kirshner heard her demo, he had it released as a single. Everything from the writing to the demo, pitching, and to the final decision to release the demo as is to the public happened within this one building. (There were actually a couple of buildings that used this format, but they go under the collective title of the Brill Building)

The biggest influence of this style of publishing, was to take the emphasis off of the singer. They could be easily replaced. The publishers brought the power back to themselves. There was a format that the writers followed to target a song for the new teen audience, and they churned out hit after hit. One part of this format was to take the composition to its most basic, simplest version. The composers were essentially dumbing the music down for the teen audiences. This gives us the idea of the 4-chord pop song.

By the mid-1960s though, the performers started writing their own songs, or conversely, some of the writers started singing their own songs. Carole King, and Neil Diamond are among a long, long list of Tin Pan Alley writers who started recording their own songs. It was this movement, and yes, Bob Dylan was a part of it, that finally put an end to Tin Pan Alley.

I will admit that I really like some of the music from this period. I love Carole King, and Neil Diamond. Burt Bacharach and Hal David were right there writing things like Do You Know the Way to San Jose. While I may think that some of these songs are schlock now, I loved them at the time. And they still hold a place in my heart.

Do you have a favorite Tin Pan Alley song? What do you think about the movement taking power away from the publishers and putting it in the hands of the performers? Where do you think the music industry is going now? Have I asked enough questions? I’ll be posting some songs from the Brill Building and the original Tin Pan Alley this week on my Minnich Music FaceBook page this week, so be sure to check them out.

Until next time!

One morning last February, I opened up my email to find one from this organization: Keep Music Alive. They were preparing their 4th annual Teach Music Week and were inviting Minnich Music to take part. I was asked to offer at least one free lesson to a new student during that week in mid-March. After checking to make sure this was a legitimate organization, I was happy to take part.

Keep Music Alive is a non-profit organization whose mission is: “to promote the VALUE OF MUSIC: for the many types of therapy music is being utilized for and for our overall happiness as a society. We believe every child deserves the opportunity to learn how to play music and every adult should be reminded that it’s never too late to start playing.” I can get behind that mission statement.

Well, one morning a few weeks ago, I opened up my email to find another one from the Keep Music Alive people inviting me to take part in Kids Music Day. (I feel there should be a possessive apostrophe on Kids, but there is not one in any of their information.)

Kids Music Day, while it is actually on Friday 4 October, is being celebrated from the 1st through the 13th. Making it more of a Kids Music Fortnight. Or almost that, a fortnight being 14 days. The purpose of this event is to highlight the importance of music as a part of children’s education.

Mozart Effect?

Through the years there have been many studies done on the importance of music in assisting the developing brain. In the 1990s it was all about the Mozart Effect. Well, most of that was never what people thought it was. The basis for the Mozart Effect was a 1993 study that found that a group of 36 college students who listened to a Mozart sonata scored higher on a spatial reasoning test than they had when listening to a monotone speaker or silence before the test. The tests also found that the effect only lasted for 10-15 minutes.

While the Mozart Effect grabbed headlines, there were other studies that were showing long-term benefits of music studies. Not just listening to music but studying it. This article from Northwestern University found that studying an instrument for at least two years results in students having improvements in how the brain processes speech and therefore improved reading scores. And unlike most studies which solely rely on test scores, this study went directly to the brain with sensors that could assess what part of the brain was being stimulated while playing.

Effects of Music Education

But it is not just in language and reading that music is important. You learn about fractions as you learn about how musical beats are divided. Music can bring people together.  By introducing music from a different culture, you can help bring understanding and appreciation of a diverse population. And by playing in a group, students can learn about cooperation, working together, and creating bonds that can last a lifetime.

I was pleased to learn from my local school system that music and art are gaining in funding. In the past, there have been several middle and elementary schools that have had an art teacher one semester, and a music teacher the next, with those teachers on a rotation. While this is better than no art or music at all, it is far from ideal. I was told at a meeting just a few weeks ago, that those schools will, within the next five years, have full-time art and music teachers. Music education is undoubtably in crisis all over the nation, but in Albuquerque, it is on the rise.

And there are always the private teachers – like me! While music education in the schools here is on the rise, that is not a replacement for private lessons. I know that in order to make the All-State choir, having a private voice teacher is almost a necessity. So, let me mention another organization that I am working with, Music Link. The goal of Music Link is to hook up lower income students with a teacher who is willing to take them at a significantly discounted rate.

This brings me back to Kids Music Day. This past Sunday, I hosted an open house/recital at my home studio. We had students as well as singers from around the area performing. There were munchies and mulled cider and we had a lot of fun.

Do you have a story about your days as a music student, I’d love to hear them! Also I’ll be playing all sorts of music on my Minnich Music FaceBook page this week, so be sure to check them out.

Until next time!