Marianne Faithfull - Weill

Let's listen to some Kurt Weill. No, my spelling is correct. I'm not talking about the ex The War On Drugs guitarist turned indie-folk hero, i'm talking about the German composer responsible for the music part of Bertolt Brecht's Epic Theater.

I need a gimmicky thing though. I've dragged the socialist/communist stick through too many puddles of mud already. I know! You're already familiar with Jim Morrison's take on Alabama song, so why not hear a completely different bizarre version of it.

Luckily, i have Marianne Faithfull's album of Weill's music. The whole Seven Deadly Sins and some other stuff (the aforementioned Alabama Song, a couple things from The Threepenny Opera, and one from Happy End.

Before you even bother to ask, she's the "da - da di - da" from Metallica's The Memory Remains. She was also the leading female of the "British Invasion" but that get mansplained away as "Mick Jagger's girlfriend" a little too often in my not particularly humble opinion.

If you've been keeping score, she's on the anorexia/heroin side of the dodge ball court. She is raspy. It's awesome. She very much reminds me of Angela Lansbury's Mrs. Lovett from the original production of Sweeney Todd (i have that too, 'cause it's my favorite musical, duh).

I suppose we can't avoid the fact that Brecht was pretty critical of capitalism, i mean he goes as far as to write a whole opera that essentially calls it the hedonistic side of a schizophrenic personality. I say it would do you some good to get a view of what other parts of the world think about us without trying to defend whatever stupid ideas you thought were important, but what do i know?

The Seven Deadly Sins exists because a bored rich English guy offered to completely finance Balenchine/Kochno's Les Ballets 1933 if 1) his wife had a part in something, and 2) Kurt Weill was involved in some way. Weill said get me Brecht! and they wrote the whole thing in a ridiculously short time. If you're a ballet afficianado, this is in between Diaghilev's death (thus the Ballet Russes's bankruptcy) and Balanchine's founding of american ballet schools so that they could stage his own productions.

The joke of this essay of course is that Marianne Faithfull was a bit of all over the place. But i really enjoy listening to her earthy, crackly voice. Bel canto isn't my thing. My apologies to every opera singer everywhere. This is fantastic. She's the best Pirate Jenny ever.

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