Music Alphabet - A - Alabama Song
As I promised earlier, I will write about the foundations of my music, i.e. the music that influenced me.
You may be surprised by the variety of genres. My music taste expanded with years and it includes almost everything, especially blues, rock, heavy metal (and its subgenres), jazz, american folk and much more.
Some kind of order is always needed when we want to summarize things, so I decided to make it with the alphabet. Each post will contain a song that starts with one of the letters of alphabet.
We'll start, of course, with 'A'
Alabama Song, a.k.a Whisky Bar
Most of you are probably familiar with the Doors version of this song and maybe even surprised that it's not the original:
Here's the thing - the song is written by Bertold Brecht, a famous German playwright and poet (Mother Courage is his most famous play) and translated to English by his close collaborator Elisabeth Hauptmann in 1925.
Kurt Weill composed the song in 1927 for a play Little Mahagonny. In 1930 the song is reused in opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny:
The song is covered by a lot of artists, including the Doors, David Bowie and even a Serbian new wave and rock legends Elektricni Orgazam:
I personally really love Alabama song. What about you?
Good start! I prefer the Bowie version - he did a whole EP of Brecht songs from 'Baal', waay back when.
The Ziggy Stardust band plays a Jaque Brel song on the movie - 'My Death' - which has nothing to do with Brecht, but I started typing before I checked my facts...
I keep meaning to check more of Brecht's work (& Brel's); there's something about the rhythms in their work that appeals.
Thank you!
Bowie was in Berlin in that period. It's interesting though that the Doors made it in the US, maybe it is a good example how ant-war culture was present in certain circles there.