Behind the Songs: Mack The Knife [Cover]

A selection of quotes from The Psychedelic Furs on their cover of the Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht song "Mack The Knife".

Richard Butler: "Well, we're not new wave and we're not punk. I mean, we do three really slow songs – 'Sister Europe', 'Imitation Of Christ', and 'Sex' [an unreleased song]. We also do 'Mack The Knife' – that Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill song – that was written years ago. I don't think we can be classed as 'new wave.'" (Slash 1980)

Richard Butler: "We don't really do cover versions. 'Mack The Knife' is the only cover version we'd do." (Overview 1981)

Richard Butler (on the time The Furs decided to cover the song): "We were on tour and we heard it by a guy called Bobby Darin, have you heard of him? It's from a Bertolt Brecht play, The Threepenny Opera and the way Bobby Darin sang it, it sounded syrupy. It shouldn't be done syrupy. It should be done more sneering and if you've seen the play, it's a very seedy type of song. We thought it should be done in more of a seedy way...or at least a bit more aggressively. So, we thought, we don't like Bobby Darin going down doing this version, so we'll do one." (Overview 1981)

Richard Butler: "I did an album of Kurt Weill songs last year, where everybody was asked to do one track each. So they got in touch with me and I said I'd like to do 'Mack The Knife' because I'd done it before, on a B-side years ago. But they said 'Sorry. Sting's got that one, but what we have got is "Alabama Song" and I was kind of dubious about that one because a lot of people before had said 'you sound like David Bowie' and I knew Bowie had done it before. So it was like the acid test doing that, but I don't think anybody could say my version sounds remotely like his, so [__] 'em." (One Two Testing 1986)

Richard Butler (on working on the Kurt Weill tribute album): "I first wanted to do 'Mack The Knife' because I think it's a good vicious song but they wanted me to do 'The Alabama Song.'" (i-D 1987)

John Ashton (on performing the cover during the 1980 Peel Sessions): "The idea was to get on and to stay on for as long as possible. I think Duncan [Kilburn] and Richard came up with this as an idea for a cover. It was originally 8 minutes +. It was edited severely!" (Should God Forget liner notes, 1997)

Photo: David Corio