The Creepiest Song Ever Used In A Musical Tomorrow Belongs To Me From Cabaret

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1972’s movie musical cabaret is one of my favourite movies ever, based loosely on the Berlin Sally Bowles stories by Christopher Isherwood, which are terrific reading in their own right. Unlike many musicals, the songs all take place on the stage in the Kit-Kat club cabaret shows. We don’t see people bursting into spontaneous yet choreographed street dancing routines shoehorned in. There is one song that is an exception in the film, Tomorrow Belongs To Me. This reminds us what we have seen in the film’s background so far, the rise of the Nazi party in the early 1930’s. Michael York and a friend are chatting in the grounds of a Bavarian / German café bar, when a young boy starts singing what sounds like a quaint rustic folk song. We see the blonde boy’s face close up but as the camera draws back we realize he is a member of the Hitler Youth, wearing a swastika. The same song suddenly sounds chilling, with its promise of a glorious pending future starting to get more menacing. Worse, others in the café grounds start to join in with the song, which becomes more aggressive and a little more discordant with each voice, moving quickly from folk song to political anthem. Michael York and his friend leave as discreetly as they can, aware now that the Nazis are not a movement they can dismiss as of no importance any more. There are moments in horror movies less effective than this. Arthur Chappell