Aug. 31, 2021

This Day in Halloween: The song “Mack The Knife” is part of the premiere of the musical The Threepenny Opera at Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin in 1928. / Illustration by Gabriela Vega

The song “Mack The Knife” is part of the premiere of the musical The Threepenny Opera at Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin in 1928. Written by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, the song is a version of a medieval minstrel’s murder ballad, in this case, for the criminal character Mackie Messer. Pop versions of the song would become hits for Bobby Darin and Louis Armstrong in the 1950s.