Alabama Song

The Alabama Song, also known as Whisky Bar, was first published in 1927 in Bertolt Brecht poems collection of Piety.

Formation

Brecht wrote the poem in 1925, the translation into English got Elisabeth Hauptmann. The original soundtrack ( as an attachment in the Homilies ) comes from Franz S. Bruinier. The Alabama song was set to music by Kurt Weill for the 1927 " song play " Mahagonny and also in the Brecht / Weill 's opera Rise and Fall of the City Mahagonny used. The text is in English and is also sung in the German version of the opera in English.

Background

The song is sung in the first act of the opera by Jenny and six girls on their way to the city networks. The girls have lost home and security and see their only chance of survival is to sell yourself to the men of Mahagonny. You wave goodbye to the moon, and that the hope of a better life, to romantic love and security.

Weill creates in the solo part Jennys an identifying change between expressing nostalgia, sad coloratura and rather cynical sounding chant.

Cover versions

The most famous cover version is by the band The Doors and was published in 1967 on the album The Doors. Jim Morrison changed the second line of " Show us the way to the next pretty boy " to " Show me the way to the next little girl".

The song has been covered by Dave Van Ronk in 1964. A cover version of David Bowie took over the original line from the Piety " Show us the way to the next whiskey bar" that was changed in the opera on " Show me the way to the next whiskey bar". The British jazz musician Mike Westbrook had the piece in the seventies regularly in his live repertoire. More versions are the Members of Bette Midler, Dalida, The Young Gods, Down, Esther Ofarim, Marianne Faithfull and Marilyn Manson.