Drinking Song Review Lotte Lenya Moon Of Alabama

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This strange, deliberately discordant song was composed by German dramatist Berthold Brecht, in 1927 as a parody of sermons by Martin Luther. The song is sung by bohemian prostitutes in Brecht’s play, Little Mahogganey, later revised into The Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahoganney. The song was first performed and later first recorded by Brecht’s friend Lotte Lenya, who married Brecht’s main co-author, Kurt Weill. Lotte Lenya went on to play the scariest James Bond villain of all time, Rosa Klebb in From Russia With Love (complete with daggers in her shoes). The song, covered by many performers including The Doors, David Bowie, Marianne Faithful and Bette Midler , is a call for the next of a series of fixes, be it a whisky bar or a little boy to seduce (male performers change the relevant lines to ones about a little girl). The song was composed and performed in English even though the original play is mostly performed in German. It has an air of the strange, exotic, lonely, desperate and even dangerous about it. I always love this song, for its melancholy air of mystery and its simple haunting chorus. The Lotte Lenya recording on Youtube Arthur Chappell