re: #260 wheat-doggha — oo bird outside my window

I have survived judging yet another English speaking contest. Twenty-six contestants, three and a half hours. I need cawfee!

Many years ago, I was doing an English lesson on controversial media - songs, films, TV shows, etc. I pointed out this was nothing new. To illustrate my point, I played “Mack the Knife” - Bobby Darin’s 1959 version, to be specific.

Only one of the students - Pavla - picked up on the lyrics right away. When it was over, she was like, “Oh my God - that song’s about a serial killer!”. The others started ridiculing her, so I said to the class, “No, actually Pavla’s right; maybe not a serial killer per se, but certainly one bad dude.” So I wrote the lyrics on a whiteboard and played the song again.

They were all kind of shocked that a song now considered a jazz standard was so exceedingly dark - and that it was from before their parents were born.