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Mack the Knife or The Ballad of Mack the Knife, originally Die Moritat von Mackie Messer, is a song composed by Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill

Kurt Julian Weill , was a Germany, and in his later years American, composer active from the 1920s until his death. He was a leading composer for the theatre....
 with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht

was a Germany poet, playwright, and theatre director. An influential theatre practitioner of the Twentieth-century theatre, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and Theatre, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble?the post-war theatre company operated by Brec...
 for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper, or, as it is known in English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
, The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera

The Threepenny Opera is a Musical theatre by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher....
. It premiered in Berlin
Berlin

Berlin is the Capital of Germany city and one of sixteen States of Germany of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is the country's largest city....
 in 1928. The song has become a popular standard.

>moritat (from mori meaning "deadly" and tat meaning "deed") is a medieval version of the murder ballad
Murder ballad

Murder ballads are a sub-genre of the the traditional ballad form, the lyrics of each being a narrative song, which present a story, using a series of recognisable formulas, structures and language forms....
 performed by strolling minstrel
Minstrel

A minstrel was a Middle Ages European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories about distant places or about real or imaginary historical events....
s.






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Mack the Knife or The Ballad of Mack the Knife, originally Die Moritat von Mackie Messer, is a song composed by Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill

Kurt Julian Weill , was a Germany, and in his later years American, composer active from the 1920s until his death. He was a leading composer for the theatre....
 with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht

was a Germany poet, playwright, and theatre director. An influential theatre practitioner of the Twentieth-century theatre, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and Theatre, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble?the post-war theatre company operated by Brec...
 for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper, or, as it is known in English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
, The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera

The Threepenny Opera is a Musical theatre by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher....
. It premiered in Berlin
Berlin

Berlin is the Capital of Germany city and one of sixteen States of Germany of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is the country's largest city....
 in 1928. The song has become a popular standard.

The Threepenny Opera

A moritat (from mori meaning "deadly" and tat meaning "deed") is a medieval version of the murder ballad
Murder ballad

Murder ballads are a sub-genre of the the traditional ballad form, the lyrics of each being a narrative song, which present a story, using a series of recognisable formulas, structures and language forms....
 performed by strolling minstrel
Minstrel

A minstrel was a Middle Ages European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories about distant places or about real or imaginary historical events....
s. In The Threepenny Opera, the moritat singer with his street organ introduces and closes the drama with the tale of the deadly Mackie Messer, or Mack the Knife, a character based on the dashing highwayman
Highwayman

The word highwayman is first attested from the year 1617. The term "highwayman" is mainly applied to robbers who travelled on a horse, as opposed to those who robbed on foot ....
 Macheath in John Gay
John Gay

John Gay was an English people poet and dramatist. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch....
's The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera

The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today....
. The Brecht-Weill version of the character was far more cruel and sinister, and has been transformed into a modern anti-hero
Anti-hero

In fiction, an antihero is a protagonist whose character or goals are antithetical to traditional hero. The term dates to 1714, although literary criticism identifies the trope in earlier literature....
.

The opera opens with the moritat singer comparing Macheath (unfavorably) with a shark
Shark

Sharks are a type of fish with a full Cartilage skeleton and a highly Streamlines, streaklines and pathlinesd body. They respire with the use of five to seven gill slits....
, and then telling tales of his robberies
Robbery

Robbery is the crime of seizing property through violence or intimidation. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....
, murder
Murder

Murder as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent , and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide....
s, rape
Rape

Rape, also referred to as sexual assault, is an assault by a person involving sexual intercourse with or sexual penetration of another person without that person's consent....
s, and arson
Arson

Arson is the crime of deliberately and maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires caused by lightning for example....
.

1954 Blitzstein translation

In the best known English translation
Translation

Translation is the hermeneutics of the Meaning of a text and the subsequent production of an Dynamic and formal equivalence text, likewise called a "translation," that communicates the same message in another language....
, from the Marc Blitzstein
Marc Blitzstein

Marc Blitzstein was an United States composer.Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania to Jewish parents, among his works were The Cradle Will Rock, whose premiere was directed by Orson Welles, the opera Regina , an adaptation of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes, the Broadway theatre Musical theater Juno based on...
 1954 version of The Threepenny Opera, which introduced the song to English-speaking audiences, the words are:

Oh the shark has pretty teeth dear,
And he shows them pearly white
Just a jack-knife
Pocket knife

A pocketknife is a folding knife with a blade that fits inside the handle and that is small enough to fit in a pocket. Blades are typically no larger than 3 to 5 in....
 has Macheath dear
And he keeps it out of sight.


This is the version popularized by Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong

Louis Daniel Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer.Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an innovative cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence on jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performers....
 (1956) and Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin

Bobby Darin was one of the most popular American big band performers and rock and roll teen idols of the late 1950s and early 1960s.Darin performed widely in a range of music genres, including pop, jazz, folk and country....
 (1959) (Darin's lyrics differ slightly), and most subsequent swing
Swing (genre)

Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and had solidified as a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States....
 versions. Weill's widow, Lotte Lenya
Lotte Lenya

Lotte Lenya was an Austrian singer and actress. In the German-speaking and classical music world she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her husband, Kurt Weill....
, the star of both the original 1928 German
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 production and the 1954 Blitzstein Broadway version, was present in the studio during Armstrong's recording. He spontaneously added her name to the lyrics, which already named several of Macheath's female victims.

The rarely heard final verse — not included in the original play, but added by Brecht for the 1930 movie — expresses the theme, and compares the glittering world of the rich and powerful with the dark world of the poor:

German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
 English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 translation
Denn die einen sind im Dunkeln
Und die andern sind im Licht
Und man siehet die im Lichte
Die im Dunkeln sieht man nicht
There are some who are in darkness
And the others are in light
And you see the ones in brightness
Those in darkness drop from sight


1976 Manheim-Willett translation
In 1976 the version translated by Ralph Manheim
Ralph Manheim

Ralph Manheim was an United States translator of German literature and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch language, Polish language and Hungarian language....
 and John Willett
John Willett

John Willett was a Translation and a scholar who is famous for translating the work of Bertolt Brecht into English language. He was born on 24 June 1917 and died on 20 August 2002....
 opened on Broadway, later made into a movie version starring Raul Julia
Raúl Juliá

Ra?l Rafael Juli? y Arcelay , better known as Ra?l Juli?, was a Puerto Rican people actor whose career included dramatic, comic, and musical roles in theater, film, and television....
 as "Mackie". Here is an excerpt:

See the shark with teeth like razors
All can read his open face
And Macheath has got a knife, but
Not in such an obvious place


This is the version later performed by Sting and Nick Cave
Nick Cave

Nicholas Edward Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, Painting, and occasional film actor. He is best known for his work in the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984 in music, who have become critically acclaimed for their fascination with American roots music....
. It is also the version performed by Lyle Lovett
Lyle Lovett

Lyle Pearce Lovett is an United States singer-songwriter and actor. Active since 1980, he has recorded thirteen albums and released 21 singles to date, including his highest entry, the #10 chart hit on the U.S....
 on the soundtrack of the film Quiz Show (1994) — the same movie features Darin's rendition over the opening credits.

1994 translation
A much darker translation by Robert David MacDonald
Robert David MacDonald

Robert David MacDonald , was a Scottish playwright, translator and theatre director....
 and Jeremy Sams
Jeremy Sams

Jeremy Sams is a United Kingdom Film director, writer, translator, orchestrator, musical director, film composer, and lyricist.Sams studied Music, French, and German at Magdalene College, Cambridge and piano at Guildhall School of Music....
 into English was used for the 1994 Donmar Warehouse theatrical production in London
London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
. The new translation attempted to recapture the original tone of the song:

Though the shark's teeth may be lethal
Still you see them white and red
But you won't see Mackie's flick knife
Cause he slashed you and you're dead


Crimes of Macheath

The song attributes many crimes to Macheath:

  • A dead man in London, on the Strand
    Strand, London

    The Strand is a street in the City of Westminster, London, England. It currently starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar London, which marks the boundary of the City of London at this point, though its #History has been longer than this....
  • A rich man, Schmul Meier, disappeared for good and possibly robbed
  • Jenny Towler, killed
    Murder

    Murder as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent , and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide....
     with a knife in the chest
  • A cabbie, Alfred Gleet, missing and presumed dead
  • Seven children and an old man killed in an arson
    Arson

    Arson is the crime of deliberately and maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires caused by lightning for example....
     fire
  • Rape
    Rape

    Rape, also referred to as sexual assault, is an assault by a person involving sexual intercourse with or sexual penetration of another person without that person's consent....
     of an underage widow (minderjährige Witwe) in her bed


The arson, rape and disappearance of the cabbie were omitted from the original cast recording of the Blitzstein version, but remain intact in the libretto
Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, sacred or secular oratorio and cantata, Musical theater, and ballet....
.

Popular song

Mack the Knife was introduced to the United States hit parade
Hit parade

The hit parade is a list of tunes?songs and instrumentals?that are most popular at any given time. The term originated in the late 1930s and has also been used for broadcast programs featuring hit tunes, such as Your Hit Parade, which was broadcast on radio and television in the United States for many years....
 by Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong

Louis Daniel Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer.Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an innovative cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence on jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performers....
 in 1954, but the song is most closely associated with Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin

Bobby Darin was one of the most popular American big band performers and rock and roll teen idols of the late 1950s and early 1960s.Darin performed widely in a range of music genres, including pop, jazz, folk and country....
, who recorded his version at Fulton Studios on West 40th Street, New York City, on December 19, 1958 (with Tom Dowd
Tom Dowd

Tom Dowd was an United States recording engineer and record producer for Atlantic Records. He was credited with innovating the multi-track recording method....
 engineering the recording). In 1959 Darin's version reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard Single popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on airplay and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday; while the airplay tracking-week runs from Wednesday to Tuesday....
 and number six on the Black Singles chart, and earned him a Grammy Award for Record of the Year
Grammy Award for Record of the Year

The Record of the Year is one of the four most prestigious Grammy Awards presented annually. It has been awarded since 1959. The honorees through its history have been:...
. Dick Clark had advised Darin not to record the song because of the perception that, having come from an opera, it wouldn't appeal to the rock & roll audience. To this day, Clark recounts the story with good humor. Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an United States singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became a solo artist with great success in the early to mid-1940s, being the idol of the "bobby soxers"....
, who recorded the song with Jimmy Buffett
Jimmy Buffett

James William "Jimmy" Buffett is a singer, songwriter, author, businessman, and recently a movie producer best known for his "island escapism" lifestyle and music including hits such as "Margaritaville" , and "Come Monday." He has a devoted base of Fan known as "Parrotheads." His band is called the Coral Reefer Band....
, called Darin's the "definitive" version. Darin's version hit #3 on Billboard's All Time Top 100. In 2003, the Darin version was ranked #251 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a United States-based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J....
s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time

The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time was the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone magazine published in November 2004, a year after the magazine published its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time....
. On BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a domestic UK radio station that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history....
's Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs

Desert Island Discs is a long-running BBC Radio 4 programme. It was first broadcast on 29 January 1942 and is said by the Guinness Book of Records to be the longest-running music programme in the history of radio....
, pop mogul Simon Cowell
Simon Cowell

Simon Phillip Cowell is an England A&R music executive, television personality/Television producer and entrepreneur, best known as a judge on such TV shows as Pop Idol, American Idol, The X Factor , and Britain's Got Talent....
 named "Mack the Knife" the best song ever written.

Brecht's original German language version was appropriated for a series of humorous and surreal blackout skits by television pioneer Ernie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs

Ernie Kovacs was an United States comedian whose uninhibited, often ad-libbed, and visually experimental comic style came to influence numerous television comedy programs for years after his early death in an automobile accident....
, showing, between skits, the vibrating soundtrack line.

Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as "Jazz royalty" and the "First Lady of Song", is considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century....
 made a famous live recording in 1960 (released on Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife
Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife

Ella in Berlin is a live 1960 album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald. This album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."...
) in which, after forgetting the lyrics after the first verse, she improvised new lyrics in a performance that earned her a Grammy. Robbie Williams
Robbie Williams

Robbie Williams is a Grammy Award-nominated and ten time BRIT Awards-winning England singer-songwriter. His career started as a member of the pop band Take That in 1990, which he left in 1995 to begin his solo career....
 also recorded the song on his 2001 album Swing When You're Winning
Swing When You're Winning

Swing When You're Winning is a jazz album by England pop singer Robbie Williams, released in 2001. Consisting mainly of pop standard song covers common to the Great American Songbook, this album is his fourth solo album released in the United Kingdom and his fifth solo album overall....
. Other notable versions include performances by Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Jimmie Dale Gilmore

Jimmie Dale Gilmore is a country music singer, songwriter, actor, recording artist and producer, currently living in Austin, Texas, Texas....
, Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett is an United States singer of traditional pop music, pop standards and jazz.Raised in New York City, Bennett began singing at an early age....
, Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull is an award-winning England singer, songwriter, actor and diarist whose career spans over four decades. Her early work in pop and rock music in the 1960s was overshadowed by her struggle with drug abuse in the 1970s....
, Nick Cave
Nick Cave

Nicholas Edward Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, Painting, and occasional film actor. He is best known for his work in the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984 in music, who have become critically acclaimed for their fascination with American roots music....
, Brian Setzer
Brian Setzer

Brian Setzer is an United States guitarist, singer and songwriter....
, Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey

Kevin Spacey is an American character actor, film director, screenwriter, film producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television....
, Westlife
Westlife

Westlife is an Irish pop band that was formed on July 3, 1998.The group's original lineup comprised Nicky Byrne, Kian Egan, Mark Feehily, Shane Filan, and Brian McFadden....
, and Michael Bublé
Michael Bublé

Michael Steven Bubl? is a Canada big band vocalist and actor. He has won several awards, including a Grammy Award and multiple Juno Awards. While his first album reached the top ten in Lebanon, the United Kingdom and his home country of Canada, it achieved only modest chart success in the United States....
. Swiss band The Young Gods
The Young Gods

The Young Gods is a Switzerland Industrial music band. The band's lineup has generally consisted of a vocalist, a sampler operator and a drummer....
 radically reworked the song in industrial
Industrial music

Industrial music comprises many styles of experimental music, including many forms of electronic music. The term was coined in the mid-1970s to describe Industrial Records artists....
 style, while jazz
Jazz

Jazz is a primarily American musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
 legend Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins

Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is an United States jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins' long, prolific career began at the age of 11, and he was playing with piano legend Thelonious Monk before reaching the age of 20....
 recorded an instrumental version entitled simply "Moritat" in 1956. A 1959 instrumental performance by Bill Haley & His Comets
Bill Haley & His Comets

Bill Haley & His Comets was an American rock and roll band that was founded in 1952 and continued until Haley's death in 1981. The band, also known by the names Bill Haley and The Comets and Bill Haley's Comets , was one of the earliest groups of white musicians to bring rock and roll to the attention of white America and the rest...
 was the final song the group recorded for Decca Records
Decca Records

Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 in music by Edward Lewis . Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; later the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
. Tito Puente
Tito Puente

Tito Puente, Sr., , born Ernesto Antonio Puente, Jr., was an influential Latin jazz and Mambo musician. The son of native Puerto Ricans Ernest and Ercilia Puente, of Spanish Harlem in New York City, Puente is often credited as "El Rey" of the timbales and "The King of Latin Music"....
 also recorded an instrumental version. Salsa musician Rubén Blades
Rubén Blades

Rub?n Blades Bellido de Luna is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, lawyer, actor, Latin jazz musician, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres....
 recorded an homage entitled "Pedro Navaja
Pedro Navaja

Pedro Navaja is a salsa music song written and performed by Rub?n Blades, about a criminal of the same name. "Navaja" means knife or razor in Spanish language....
." Brazilian composer Chico Buarque
Chico Buarque

Francisco Buarque de Hollanda , popularly known as Chico Buarque, is a singer, guitarist, composer, dramatist, and writer. He is best known for his music, however, which often comments on Brazil's social, economic and cultural reality....
, in his adaptation of Threepenny Opera (Ópera do Malandro), made two versions called "A Volta do Malandro" and "O Malandro
Malandragem

Malandragem is a Brazilian Portuguese language term for the Bohemianism lifestyle - an ethos of idleness, fast living and petty crime - traditionally celebrated in samba lyrics, especially those of Noel Rosa....
 No. 2", with lyrics in Portuguese.

The song has been put to many other uses. American parodists
Parody

A parody , in contemporary usage, is a work created to mock, comment on, or poke fun at an original work, its subject, or author, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation....
 the Capitol Steps
Capitol Steps

The Capitol Steps is an United States political satire group. It has been performing since 1981, and has released approximately thirty albums consisting primarily of song parody....
 used the tune for their song "Pack the Knife" in their 2002 album When Bush Comes to Shove. In the mid-1980s, fast food giant McDonald's
McDonald's

McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of fast food restaurants, serving nearly 58 million customers daily. McDonald's primarily sells hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken products, French fries, breakfast items, soft drinks, milkshakes, and desserts....
 introduced "Mac Tonight
Mac Tonight

File:Mac Tonight.PNGFile:PICT1107.JPGMac Tonight was a mascot introduced by McDonald's restaurants in 1986. He was intended to advertise McDonald's late night hours to adults....
", a character whose signature song was based on "Mack the Knife."

Selective list of recorded versions

  • 1928/29 Bertolt Brecht
    Bertolt Brecht

    was a Germany poet, playwright, and theatre director. An influential theatre practitioner of the Twentieth-century theatre, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and Theatre, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble?the post-war theatre company operated by Brec...
  • 1954 Gerald Price, Broadway cast recording of The Threepenny Opera
  • 1955 Lotte Lenya
    Lotte Lenya

    Lotte Lenya was an Austrian singer and actress. In the German-speaking and classical music world she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her husband, Kurt Weill....
     on the album     Lotte Lenya Sings Berlin Theater Songs of Kurt Weill
  • 1956 Louis Armstrong
    Louis Armstrong

    Louis Daniel Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer.Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an innovative cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence on jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performers....
     #20 hit single
    Hit single

    A hit single is a Sound recording track or Single that has become very popular. Although it is sometimes used to describe any widely-played or big-selling song, the term "hit" is usually reserved for a single that has appeared in an official Record chart through repeated airplay and/or significant commercial sales....
  • Dick Hyman
    Dick Hyman

    Dick Hyman is an American jazz pianist/keyboardist and composer best known for his versatility with jazz piano styles. Over a 50 year career he has functioned as pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and, increasingly, as composer....
    , instrumental
  • Billy Vaughn
    Billy Vaughn

    Richard "Billy" Vaughn was a singer, multi-instrumentalist, and orchestra leader.He was born in Glasgow, Kentucky, Kentucky, where his father was a barber who loved music and inspired Billy to teach himself to play the mandolin at age 3, while suffering a case of the measles....
    , instrumental
  • Sonny Rollins
    Sonny Rollins

    Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is an United States jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins' long, prolific career began at the age of 11, and he was playing with piano legend Thelonious Monk before reaching the age of 20....
    , jazz instrumental, on the album     Saxophone Colossus
    Saxophone Colossus

    Saxophone Colossus is one of Sonny Rollins' most acclaimed albums. Recorded and released in 1956, it is widely considered the masterpiece of his mid-1950s series of recordings for Prestige....


  • 1957 Bing Crosby
    Bing Crosby

    Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an United States popular singer and actor whose career lasted from 1926 until his death.One of the first multimedia stars, from 1934 to 1954 Bing Crosby held a nearly unrivaled command of record sales, radio ratings and motion picture grosses....
     with Bob Scobey
    Bob Scobey

    Bob Scobey was an American jazz musician born in Tucumcari, New Mexico.He began his career playing in dance orchestras and nightclubs in the 1930s....
     on the album     Bing with a Beat
    Bing With A Beat

    Bing With A Beat was Bing Crosby seventh long play album, but his first recorded with RCA Victor.Bing With A Beat is a concept album where all the songs feature "hot" jazz and dixieland arrangements by the bandleader Bob Scobey....
  • 1959 Bobby Darin
    Bobby Darin

    Bobby Darin was one of the most popular American big band performers and rock and roll teen idols of the late 1950s and early 1960s.Darin performed widely in a range of music genres, including pop, jazz, folk and country....
    , U.S. and UK #1
  • Bill Haley & His Comets
    Bill Haley & His Comets

    Bill Haley & His Comets was an American rock and roll band that was founded in 1952 and continued until Haley's death in 1981. The band, also known by the names Bill Haley and The Comets and Bill Haley's Comets , was one of the earliest groups of white musicians to bring rock and roll to the attention of white America and the rest...
     on the album     Strictly Instrumental
  • Kenny Dorham
    Kenny Dorham

    McKinley Howard Dorham was an United States jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer born in Fairfield, Texas....
     on the album     Quiet Kenny


  • 1960 Ella Fitzgerald
    Ella Fitzgerald

    Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as "Jazz royalty" and the "First Lady of Song", is considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century....
     on the album     Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife
    Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife

    Ella in Berlin is a live 1960 album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald. This album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."...
  • 1964 Miloš Kopecký
    Miloš Kopecký

    Milo? Kopeck? was a Czech people actor, active mainly in the second half of the 20th century....
     in Czech musical Lemonade Joe
    Lemonade Joe

    Lemonade Joe , complete name in Czech language Limon?dov? Joe aneb Konsk? opera, is a Czechoslovakian film from 1964 in film, directed by Oldrich Lipsk? and written by Jir? Brdecka, based on his own novel and theatre play....
     (Limonádový Joe aneb Konská opera)
  • 1965 Ben Webster
    Ben Webster

    Benjamin Francis Webster , aka "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential United States jazz tenor saxophone. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young....
     on the album "Stormy Weather"
  • 1967 Dave Van Ronk
    Dave Van Ronk

    Dave Van Ronk was a folk singer born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York City, and was nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street."...
     on the album     Live at Sir George Williams University, again in 1992 on Let No One Deceive You: Songs of Bertolt Brecht
  • 1968 The Doors
    The Doors

    The Doors were an United States rock music band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California by Singer Jim Morrison, keyboard instrument Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger....
     on the album     Live In Stockholm
  • 1980 The Psychedelic Furs on the 2002 re-release of their self-titled first album
    The Psychedelic Furs (album)

    The Psychedelic Furs was the first album by The Psychedelic Furs. It was released in 1980 on Columbia Records. It was reissued with bonus tracks in 2002 by Columbia/Legacy....
  • 1983 King Kurt
    King Kurt

    King Kurt was a 1980s psychobilly rock band from the United Kingdom....
     on the album     Ooowallahwallah!, psychobilly version
  • 1984 Frank Sinatra
    Frank Sinatra

    Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an United States singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became a solo artist with great success in the early to mid-1940s, being the idol of the "bobby soxers"....
     on the album     L.A. Is My Lady
    L.A. Is My Lady

    L.A. Is My Lady is a 1984 album by Frank Sinatra, featuring arrangements by Quincy Jones. It was the last solo album that Sinatra recorded....
  • 1985 Sting on the album Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill
    Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill

    Lost In The Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill is a 1985 in music tribute album to German-American composer Kurt Weill. It was executive-produced by Hal Willner and John Telfer, and produced by Hal Willner and Paul M....
  • 1988 Ute Lemper
    Ute Lemper

    Ute Lemper is a German chanteuse and actress renowned for her interpretation of the work of Kurt Weill....
     on the album     Ute Lemper sings Kurt Weill
  • 1990 Roger Daltrey
    Roger Daltrey

    Roger Harry Daltrey Order of the British Empire is an England singer-songwriter and actor, best known as the founder and lead singer of English rock music band The Who....
     on the film soundtrack     Mack the Knife
  • 1991 The Young Gods
    The Young Gods

    The Young Gods is a Switzerland Industrial music band. The band's lineup has generally consisted of a vocalist, a sampler operator and a drummer....
     on the album     The Young Gods Play Kurt Weill
    The Young Gods Play Kurt Weill

    Play Kurt Weill is a cover album released by Switzerland Industrial music band The Young Gods. All songs appearing on the album are covers of Germany composer Kurt Weill....
  • 1994 Lyle Lovett
    Lyle Lovett

    Lyle Pearce Lovett is an United States singer-songwriter and actor. Active since 1980, he has recorded thirteen albums and released 21 singles to date, including his highest entry, the #10 chart hit on the U.S....
     on the soundtrack to     Quiz Show
    Quiz Show

    Quiz Show is a 1994 American historical drama film which tells the true story of the Twenty One quiz show scandal of the 1950s. It stars John Turturro, Rob Morrow, Ralph Fiennes, Paul Scofield, David Paymer, Hank Azaria, and Christopher McDonald....
  • Frank Sinatra
    Frank Sinatra

    Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an United States singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became a solo artist with great success in the early to mid-1940s, being the idol of the "bobby soxers"....
     with Jimmy Buffett
    Jimmy Buffett

    James William "Jimmy" Buffett is a singer, songwriter, author, businessman, and recently a movie producer best known for his "island escapism" lifestyle and music including hits such as "Margaritaville" , and "Come Monday." He has a devoted base of Fan known as "Parrotheads." His band is called the Coral Reefer Band....
     on the album     Duets II
    Duets II

    Duets II is an album by United States singer Frank Sinatra, released in 1994.It follows the same formula as the previous year's Duets , with Phil Ramone again producing and guest artists from various genres again contributing their duet parts to Sinatra's already recorded vocals....


  • 1995 Nick Cave
    Nick Cave

    Nicholas Edward Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, Painting, and occasional film actor. He is best known for his work in the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984 in music, who have become critically acclaimed for their fascination with American roots music....
     on the album     September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill
  • 1999 Max Raabe
    Max Raabe

    Max Raabe is a Germany singer and band leader of the Palast Orchester. He and his orchestra specialise in recreating the sound of German dance and film music of the 1920s and 1930s, especially by performing songs of the Comedian Harmonists....
     on the album     Die Dreigroschenoper, Ensemble Modern
    Ensemble Modern

    Ensemble Modern is a chamber ensemble dedicated to the music of modern composers. Formed in 1980, the group is based in Frankfurt, Germany and made up variously of about twenty members from numerous countries....
  • 2000 The Brian Setzer Orchestra
    The Brian Setzer Orchestra

    The Brian Setzer Orchestra is a swing music and jump blues band formed in 1990 by Stray Cats frontman Brian Setzer. The group had success covering Louis Prima's "Jump Jive an' Wail", which appeared in Prima's 1957 album The Wildest!....
     on the album     Vavoom!
    Vavoom!

    Vavoom! is an album by The Brian Setzer Orchestra....
  • 2001 Robbie Williams
    Robbie Williams

    Robbie Williams is a Grammy Award-nominated and ten time BRIT Awards-winning England singer-songwriter. His career started as a member of the pop band Take That in 1990, which he left in 1995 to begin his solo career....
     on the album     Swing When You're Winning
    Swing When You're Winning

    Swing When You're Winning is a jazz album by England pop singer Robbie Williams, released in 2001. Consisting mainly of pop standard song covers common to the Great American Songbook, this album is his fourth solo album released in the United Kingdom and his fifth solo album overall....
  • 2004 Kevin Spacey
    Kevin Spacey

    Kevin Spacey is an American character actor, film director, screenwriter, film producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television....
     On the     Beyond the Sea
    Beyond the Sea (film)

    Beyond the Sea is a 2004 in film biographical film based on the life of singer/actor Bobby Darin. Kevin Spacey, who stars in the lead role and used his own singing voice for the musical numbers, co-wrote, directed, and co-produced the film, which takes its title from the Darin Beyond the Sea ....
     soundtrack.
  • Tony Bennett
    Tony Bennett

    Tony Bennett is an United States singer of traditional pop music, pop standards and jazz.Raised in New York City, Bennett began singing at an early age....
  • Jimmie Dale Gilmore
    Jimmie Dale Gilmore

    Jimmie Dale Gilmore is a country music singer, songwriter, actor, recording artist and producer, currently living in Austin, Texas, Texas....
  • Dean Martin
    Dean Martin

    Dean Martin was an United States singer, film actor and comedian of Italians descent. He was one of the best known musical artists of the 1950s and 1960s....
  • Peggy Lee
    Peggy Lee

    Peggy Lee was an United States jazz and traditional pop singer and songwriter and Academy Award-nominated actress. She was born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota....
  • Michael Buble
    Michael Bublé

    Michael Steven Bubl? is a Canada big band vocalist and actor. He has won several awards, including a Grammy Award and multiple Juno Awards. While his first album reached the top ten in Lebanon, the United Kingdom and his home country of Canada, it achieved only modest chart success in the United States....


See also

  • List of songs banned by the BBC


External links