"The Ballad of Mack and Knife" was, along with the lyrics of several other songs, subjected to censorship and rewrites on the famous cast recording of the 1954 Theatre de Lys production, and the lyrics heard on the recording are not the ones that were heard onstage. In addition, the licensed materials offer a number of additional verses so that any production doing the Blitzstein translation has the option of various alternatives to the point that a production could end up using fairly few of the verses heard on the recording.
And, of course, pop singers have made some further adjustments of their own. |
