ALABAMA SONG

One of the first songs I learned at my mother's knee was NOT, as you may have thought, The Winnipeg Whore, or The Harlot of Jerusalem ('kafoozalem'). Close, but no stogey.
Not even The Ring Dang Doo, Cocaine Joe And Heroin Sue, or The Foggy Foggy Dew.


OH MOON OF ALABAMA...

The song was written not by Bertolt Brecht, as commonly believed, but by Brecht's friend and collaborator Elisabeth Hauptman while they were working together in 1925.
It was set to music by balding odd-looking musical genius Kurt Weill in 1927.
Probably known best as sung by Lotte Lenya in The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny ('Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny'), though since then it has been covered by numerous artists.

One of the better know versions is sung by Jim Morrison of the doors.
"Oh show us, the way, to the next whiskey bar..... oh don't ask why, oh don't ask why. Show me the way to the next whiskey bar, oh don't ask why, oh don't ask why.
For if we don't find the next whiskey bar, I tell you we must die, I tell you we must die, I tell ya, I tell ya, I tell you we must die!"


THE WHISKEY BOWL
A remarkably sane and clean looking Morrison sings the song at the Hollywood Bowl in 1968.

[SOURCE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_d_VJbYAfc.]

Obviously, that wasn't the version I first heard. What was on the victrola during my childhood was the Kurt Weill - Berthold Brecht - Lotte Lenya version. It was..... disturbingly sinful and sleazy. I didn't know why, but it disquieted me. Perhaps the note of hopelessness and forlorn searching for just another depravity underlying the text made me feel that way, perhaps the angstigkeit of Lotte's voice.

It wasn't till I saw a performance of Mahagony at the Stadsschouwburg in Eindhoven that the song really clicked. Heck, the entire opera clicked, big time!
When the ramshackle vehicle with the widow Begbick and her two desperate cohorts tootles onto the stage and promptly craps-out, life really starts.


SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE OFFICE

As I type this, it is 8:20 PM on a Saturday evening. In another few minutes I shall load up my pipe and head out to the only bar in San Francisco where one may smoke. It is around the corner from the office. There will be whiskey there.
And, karmicly-speaking, the widow Begbick too.
But it will be the harlot Jenny Smith whose voice will echo in my ear, singing the Alabama Song, searching for liquor, loot, and pretty boys.


I'll put up with the cheap cigar smoke from the Alaskan miners.
Small price to pay for a daydream.


NOTE: One of my father's favourite songs, which I also liked, was Surabaya Johnny.

"Ich war jung, gott, erst sechzehn Jahre, du kamest von Birma herauf....."



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