Bertolt Brecht - Bad Time For Poetry

Worthy of note, is not only did The Doors include a Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill composition in the form of Alabama Song (Whisk[e]y Bar) as part of their repertoire, but also occasionally included as part of a live concert medley, the track: Ballad Of Mac The Knife.

In the Live At The Matrix shows from March 1967, unlike the studio version of Alabama Song, where Morrison sings 'Oh show me, the way, to the next little girl', the word 'boy' is substituted for 'girl'. In the Bad Time For Poetry translation, the adjective used to describe the girl is 'pretty' rather than 'little'. 'little boy/girl' hints more at the darker paedophile/child abusing attributes of the song's protagonist/character (not the singer, it is but merely a persona/mask for the few minutes the song lasts), and since Brecht's work describes and exposes the dark underbelly of city life, where everything is for sale, including sex with young children, whether boy or girl, this adjective is more appropriate and accurate. 'Pretty' is a softer adjective possibly implying the girl/s in question are not what we may think they are, or are being used for, but "the next..." pretty/little girl, indicates that there have been many more beforehand, used and discarded like the city of Mahagonny's trash. A simple drinking song, this isn't.

Hence also, lines such as these from Ballad Of Mac The Knife:

And the ghastly fire in Soho - 
Seven children at a go - 
In the crowd stands Mac the Knife, but he
Isn't asked and doesn't know. 

And the child-bride in her nightie
Whose assailant's still at large
Violated in her slumbers - 
Mackie, how much did you charge?


Curiously and coincidentally,  the phrase 'blue sunday' (the name of a Doors song of course) appears in an earlier verse:

On a beautiful blue Sunday
See a corpse stretched in the Strand.
See a man dodge round the corner...
Mackie's friends will understand.

I'm sure The Doors/Morrison did not realise the full implication of the "Little Girl" phrase and its context, but it cannot be anything other than a extremely dark commentary on early modern living (from the male perspective of course - most of the first album is "cock rock" at its best after all) no matter who sings it... And then there's You're lost, LITTLE girl, from Strange Days, which of course, has a completely different context... and then there's The men don't know, but the little girls understand from Back Door Man from the same first album. And for such a supposedly apolitical group (the throwaway "erotic politicians" phrase springs to mind here), why did they pick a song that was penned by such an ardent socialst and politically-minded man as Brecht??? possibly they perceived how the song could be take completely out of its original context and used as a paean to total debauchery rather than as an indictment of all that is wrong with modern society??? 

wine, women, (and song) and money... motel money murder madness... the idea that money had nothing to do with the Alabama Song for instance, just because it didn't suit Morrison's/The Doors' perception of their own society is an insult to the original... by excising that verse, Morrison contradicts his later poetic statement, that "Money Beats Soul... everytime." You're entitled to change your mind, but make up your mind eventually.

Apologies for the rant...

Bowie connection #3: David Bowie did a cover of Alabama Song in the late 1970s/early 1980s, which included all three verses. In 1982, Bowie also starred in a BBC production of and sang songs from Brecht's play Baal.