Cloudcukooland Civic Light Opera :
"Petroleum Leider?/Petroleum Lieder"
As an antidote to "The Puppet Prince," still in its interminable final weeks, the CCCLO is offering lighter fare on off-nights.
Try this bracing cocktail-revue of Teresa Stratas singing Kurt Weill songs about the corruption of Europe by oil corporations. Really!
Kurt Weill was chased out of Germany not only because he was Jewish, but because his songs, in the popular jazz style of his distinctive musical voice, satirized industrial petro-capitalism. Weill and his collaborators intuited, even as far back as the 1920s, that Petro-Power was the force behind incipient Fascism.
In 1981 Teresa Stratas's album "The Unknown Kurt Weill" helped re-invigorate Weill's reputation. It established Stratas herself as a go-to Weill interpreter. She understands these bizarre Expressionist vaudevilles were central moments in Weill's whole art. She reveals his nerdy genius, his common-sense humanity, and his cheeky humor.
1). Das Lied von den Braunen Inseln (1927)
Song from the Lion Feuchtwanger play "Die Petroleuminseln." The play begins with the passengers of the ship "Peruchacha" listening to "Das Lied von den braunen Inseln" on the gramophone. Feuchtwanger then moves the setting to an oil drilling island just south of the United States.
Lyrics by Lion Feuchtwanger:
Das ist von den braunen Inseln das Lied
Die Männer sind schlecht und die Weiber sind krank
Und eine Äffin hält dort den Betrieb
Und die Felder verdorren im Ölgestank!Chorus:
Gehst hin, Freddy?
Ich nicht, Teddy
Der Dollar allein macht das Herz nicht froh!
Gehst hin, Freddy?
Ich nicht, Teddy
Ich, wenn Affen sehen will, ich geh' in' Zoo!
Das sind die braunen Inseln, mein Jung
Die Weiber sind krank und the Männer sind schlecht
Eine Äffin hält dort das Ganze in Schwung
Und wer kommt ist gesund, und wer geht is geschwächt
Chorus
Wer kommt ist gesund und wer geht ist geschwächt'
Die Äffin regiert in Bett und Fabrik
Die Äffin hat Geld und die Äffin hat Recht
Und das Mannsvolk pariert in Bett und Fabrik!
Chorus
Petroleum stinkt und die Insel stinkt
Sie stinkt nach gelben und schwarzem Mann
Doch der Dollar stinkt nicht, den das Erdöl bringt
Und gegen die Äffin kann keiner anChorus
(Tr. by A. Martin):
The Brown Islands sing their own song, but off-key.
The men there are bad, and each wife is a wench.
An old Ape-wife runs the big monopoly,
And the grain withers from the Petroleum-stench.
Go there, Freddy? I swear, Teddy!
The Dollar won't make life a dream for you.
Go near, Freddy? My dear Teddy,
I can see apes here in town, down at the Zoo!
Those are the Brown Islands, my beamish boy:
The women are sick, and the men all are sots.
The Old Lady Ape drives them in her employ
They arrive young and fresh, and go out on cots.
Go there, Freddy? I swear, Teddy!
The Dollar won't make life a dream for you.
Go near, Freddy? My dear Teddy,
I can see apes here in town, down at the Zoo!
Arrive in the pink, and go out in a cot!
The Old Lady Ape rules the bed, and the job.
There isn't a thing that That Ape hasn't got,
While a man's just a part in the sheets and shop.
Go there, Freddy? I swear, Teddy!
The Dollar won't make life a dream for you.
Go near, Freddy? My dear Teddy,
I can see apes here in town, down at the Zoo!
Petroleum stinks, and the Islands all stink
Of yellow and black men and brown men enslaved.
Though dollars smell sweet, like success, do you think
You could beat that old Ape, with your soul still saved?
Go there, Freddy? I swear, Teddy!
The Dollar won't make life a dream for you.
Go near, Freddy? My dear Teddy,
I can see apes here in town, down at the Zoo!
2. Die Muschel Von Margate (1928)
Russia Seizes Shell's Sakhalin Gas Project
'“Die Muschel von Margate” was part of Konjunktur (Oil Boom), a play by Leo Lania with incidental music by Kurt Weill, in which three oil companies fight over the rights to oil production in a primitive Balkan country, and in the process exploit the people and destroy the environment. It premiered in Berlin, directed by Erwin Piscator.' -- kwf.org
 |
| https://martinpc2.wordpress.com/2015/04/10/shell-the-evolution-of-a-logo/ |
Lyrics by Felix Gasbarra (tr. by John Willett)
In Margate on the promenade
Where the tourists sit when it’s fine
There stood an old man selling souvenirs
With a big tin shell as his sign.
That old man had a pail
Of painted shells for sale
And everyone could hear him yell
Shell! Shell! Shell!
Seashells from Margate
Act like a charm
Seashells with gold decorations
Seashells from Margate
Cannot do you harm
Keep the memory warm
Reminding you of happy vacations.In Margate on the promenade
There’s a stink to raise the dead.
Where once a pail of seashells stood
There’s an oil tank now instead.
That old man had a son who found
A fortune buried underground.
And now the son prefers to sell
Shell! Shell! Shell!
Seashells from Margate
Act like a charm
Seashells with gold decorations
Seashells from Margate
Cannot do you harm
Keep the memory warm
Responding to your great expectations.And as the oil began to flow
To that seaside town of ours
They hanged a lot of Bolsheviks
From the Baku drilling towers.
They showed that they were loyal
By turning blood to oil.
A thousand corpses make a well–
Shell! Shell! Shell!
Seashells from Margate
Act like a charm
Seashells with gold decorations
Seashells from Margate
Cannot do you harm
Keep the memory warm
Recording mass exterminations.And as the summer sun shone bright
On that seaside town of ours
The oil began to catch alight
And no land remained unscarred.
The whole world was aflame
But oil was our country’s name.
And all the rest can go to hell.
Shell! Shell! Shell!
Seashells from Margate
Act like a charm
Seashells with gold decorations
Seashells from Margate
Cannot do you harm
Not until we arm / For the final confrontation!
3). Berlin Im Licht (1928)
I thought (Teresa Stratas says) that Weill himself wrote these splendidly folk-naive lyrics. But Brecht is cited by [none other than] the Berlin Philarmonic's Own Dramaturg, see below. Was immer; the context of the municipal illumination is the same. Recall that Van Nuys was planned with municipal illumination in 1911. Weimar Germany was definitely playing catch-up with modernity; but Electrification as Progress is at heart a socialist idea -- in other words, consistent with native traditions in German politics and society since the days of Bismarck. The way Stratas sings it, it seems a very short fall from the giddy romance of carnival "Berlin in Light" to the frenzied authoritarian crowds of the National Socialists. You sense that Weill saw a few already milling about under those blazing lampposts.
Since there were no good English words online, I offer:
(tr. by A. Martin:)
To take a normal walk
The sun has got the stuff.
But if you want to see Berlin,
The sunshine's not enough!
This is not some Podunk or Hicksville,
Berlin is one elegant Stadt!
To make sure you take the right image
We bring on the light watt by watt.
Na wat denn, na wat denn?
Can we see this glaring spot, then?
Come strike a light
So we can see, just what we're seeing
We'll all keep still, and watch the livelong night
Let there be light,
to share the sight of what we're seeing,
The scene that can be seen,
Berlin in Light!
The sun has got the stuff.
But if you want to see Berlin,
The sunshine's not enough!
This is not some Podunk or Hicksville,
Berlin is one elegant Stadt!
To make sure you take the right image
We bring on the light watt by watt.
Na wat denn, na wat denn?
Can we see this glaring spot, then?
Come strike a light
So we can see, just what we're seeing
We'll all keep still, and watch the livelong night
Let there be light,
to share the sight of what we're seeing,
The scene that can be seen,
Berlin in Light!
Und zum spazieren gehen genügt das Sonnenlicht
Doch um die Stadt Berlin zu sehen genügt die Sonne nicht
Das ist kein lauschiges Plätzchen
Das ist ‘ne ziemliche Stadt
Damit man da alles gut sehen kann
Da braucht man schon einige Watt
Na wat denn, na wat denn?
Was ist das für ‘ne Stadt denn?
Komm mach mal Licht, und rede nun mal nicht
Komm mach mal Licht, dann wollen wir doch auch mal sehen
Ob das ‘ne Sache ist : Berlin im Licht
"A city in the limelight..."
(https://www.berlinerphilharmoniker.de/en/titelgeschichten/20202021/golden-twenties-1/)
"Berlin's Mayor Gustav Böß set the direction with the slogan 'Licht lockt Leute' (Light attracts people): Berlin was to present itself as a modern and forward-looking metropolis. And so the city was literally floodlit, bathed in dazzling light every evening by huge spotlights. People were on their feet non-stop to admire the illuminated Hedwig’s Cathedral, the Reichstag, the Rathaus, the Museum Island and the waterfall at Kreuzberg. Columns of light were erected and a carpet of lights stretched along Leipziger Straße. Those who had the necessary cash could board specially provided cars, buses and trams that headed for the illuminated sights. Even the river Spree and the Landwehrkanal were toured by their own “Lichtcorso” motorboats. After four days, the grand finale of the festival took place in the Kroll Opera House opposite the Reichstag with the “Light Ball”. As the highlight of the evening, the well-known cabaret artist and actor Paul Graetz performed the Berlin im Licht song. The organizers had pulled off a real coup, because the work came from the artistic dream team of the year: Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. Their Threepenny Opera premiered at the end of August and has been the talk of the town ever since: every bar rang with The Ballad of Mackie Messer, and the Tango Ballad played in every dance hall. Weill’s short foxtrot Berlin im Licht had already been heard in an instrumental version in the square concert in front of the Ka-DeWe and had shown its qualities as a catchy tune there, but with Brecht’s tongue-in-cheek lyrics, it immediately became a popular hit."
With this background, during or after your listening, you might read Jorge Richter's compelling, common-sense explication of Europe's recent petro-economic suicide pact over Ukraine, and the ongoing craven stupidity of the West's antique elites:
"European transportation of anything and everything — from people to peanuts to 500,000 metric tons ULCC oil tankers — is 99% diesel-powered. Whoever in Europe wishes or needs to move whatever with whichever vehicle or craft from point A to point B anywhere — either very close or very far away — will need diesel-powered engines somewhere along the line, and sometimes all along the long line. This is a fact, not an opinion. No diesel, no Europe. By the same token – and if so far you´ve only been browsing from now on please focus sharply on every word — less diesel, less Europe… and not enough diesel, no longer Europe as we know it. Furthermore, less diesel necessarily means even far less diesel yet as explained below. But first, let us recall where diesel comes from. Diesel comes from distilled crude oil which, as of December 2022 will no longer be from Russia..."
-- Jorge Richter writing for the Saker Blog
