31 Days of Halloween Hits: "Mack the Knife" by Bobby Darin

by Julian Spivey
As we welcome October with its cool breezes, and - now socially distanced - festivities, we often think of scary movies, pumpkin patches and killers in masks. Rarely, if ever, do you hear anyone say what they’re looking forward to most about the season, is the music. Granted, Halloween music has nowhere near the mega-market that Christmas music has, but it seems that quality trumps quantity in this particular situation. With songs like Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” Halloween season is a heavy hitter when it comes to music! 
 
That’s why we’re celebrating 31 Days of Halloween Hits here at The Word for the entire month of October. Every day we’re going to bring you a great song that fits right in on your Halloween playlist. Some are songs specifically written for the holiday, but others are great selections you can listen to year-around but have a great theme for the spookiest of all holidays. Some of these songs you’ve certainly heard and some are lesser known that we hope to familiarize you with. 

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Photo: Atco Records

One of the all-time greatest murder ballads is Bobby Darin’s take on “Mack the Knife,” which was a No. 1 hit in 1959 and won Record of the Year at the second ever Grammy Awards.
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The song tells the tale of a serial killer who kills people with a jackknife and originated from a 1928 German opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill called “The Threepenny Opera.” In the opera the character Mackie Messer was based off the character of MacHeath, the leader of a gang of robbers, in John Gay’s 1728 opera “The Beggar’s Opera.” So, “Mack the Knife” likely goes back way further than any other song on our Halloween playlist.

I’ve long thought the killer in “Mack the Knife” to be based on infamous and mysterious real-life serial killer Jack the Ripper of 1880s London, and some versions of the song may lean on that a bit more than others, but the inspiration seems to go back much further than that.

Despite “Mack the Knife” being a massive hit and an award-winner for Darin there were those who believed recording a song from an opera might harm his career. At the time Darin was more known as an early rock & roll artist with his biggest hit thus far being 1958’s top-five hit “Splish Splash,” but “Mack the Knife” would lead to a more lounge singer vibe with another smash hit “Beyond the Sea” coming in 1960.

Something about the suaveness of Darin’s vocal gives the ballad about a serial killer who’s knife cuts through flesh like the teeth of a shark an even more eerie feel.
Rolling Stone magazine ranked “Mack the Knife” as the 251st greatest song of all-time and pop music mogul and reality show judge Simon Cowell said on BBC Radio 4’s “Desert Island Discs” that “Mack the Knife” is the best song ever written.  

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