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“Mack the Knife“ (“Die Moritat von Mackie Messer“) is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their 1928 music drama The Threepenny Opera (“Die Dreigroschenoper“). The song tells of a knife-wielding criminal of the London underworld from the musical named Macheath, the “Mack the Knife“ of the title. The song has become a popular standard recorded by many artists after it was recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1955. The most popular version of the song was by Bobby Darin in 1959, whose recording became a number one hit in the US and UK and earned him two Grammys. The original German lyrics and music of the song entered the public domain in the United States in 2024. For Bobby Dari, the song was arranged by Richard Wess. Musicians on the song included Don Lamond on drums, Milt Hinton on bass, and Doc Severinsen on trumpet with Tom Dowd engineering the recording. Darin recorded the song in around three takes, performing the song with an up-tempo bouncy beat and modulating up a semitone every verse starting with the third verse, from B-flat to B to C to D-flat to E-flat. The song was released as a single in August 1959, even though Darin was reluctant to release the song as a single. The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and number six on the Black Singles Chart. It was listed as a Cash Box Top 100 number one single in 1959 for eight weeks. Dick Clark had advised Darin not to record the song because of the perception that, having come from an opera, it would not appeal to the rock and roll audience; he subsequently acknowledged his error.
