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Download the Mack The Knife instrumental below.

Simply record your vocals to it using Garage Band or your recording software OR play it in the background while you record a web cam video singing the song. Then, go here and upload an mp3 or video of your performance. If you like, provide embed info to a video on youtube, but that will unfortunately limit our ability to promote you. If approved, your submission will be rated by others and will be considered by us for promotion and distribution or pitching to the TV and Film industry for placement. We’ll notify you if this is the case. Thanks and good luck!

A moritat (from mori meaning “deadly” and tat meaning “deed”) is a medieval version of the murder ballad performed by strolling minstrels. In The Threepenny Opera, the moritat singer with his street organ introduces and closes the drama with the tale of the deadly Mackie Messer, or Mack the Knife, a character based on the dashing highwayman Macheath in John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera. The Brecht-Weill version of the character was far more cruel and sinister, and has been transformed into a modern anti-hero.

The play opens with the moritat singer comparing Macheath (unfavorably) with a shark, and then telling tales of his robberies, murders, rapes, and arson.

The song was inserted in the play shortly before its premiere in 1928, because Harald Paulsen, who created the role of Macheath, wished a more effectful introduction of his character.

“Mack the Knife” was introduced to the United States hit parade by Louis Armstrong in 1956, but the song is most closely associated with Bobby Darin, who recorded his version at Fulton Studios on West 40th Street, New York City, on December 19, 1958 (with Tom Dowd engineering the recording). In 1959 Darin’s version reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and number six on the Black Singles chart, and earned him a Grammy Award for Record of the Year. Dick Clark had advised Darin not to record the song because of the perception that, having come from an opera, it wouldn’t appeal to the rock & roll audience. To this day, Clark recounts the story with good humor. Frank Sinatra, who recorded the song with Jimmy Buffett, called Darin’s the “definitive” version. Darin’s version hit #3 on Billboard’s All Time Top 100. In 2003, the Darin version was ranked #251 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. On BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, pop mogul Simon Cowell named “Mack the Knife” the best song ever written. Brecht’s original German language version was appropriated for a series of humorous and surreal blackout skits by television pioneer Ernie Kovacs, showing, between skits, the vibrating soundtrack line. Ella Fitzgerald made a famous live recording in 1960 (released on Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife) in which, after forgetting the lyrics after the first verse, she improvised new lyrics in a performance that earned her a Grammy Award. Robbie Williams also recorded the song on his 2001 album Swing When You’re Winning. Other notable versions include performances by Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Tony Bennett, Marianne Faithfull, Nick Cave, Brian Setzer, Kevin Spacey, Westlife, and Michael Bublé. Swiss band The Young Gods radically reworked the song in industrial style, while jazz legend Sonny Rollins recorded an instrumental version entitled simply “Moritat” in 1956. A 1959 instrumental performance by Bill Haley & His Comets was the final song the group recorded for Decca Records. Tito Puente also recorded an instrumental version. Salsa musician Rubén Blades recorded an homage entitled “Pedro Navaja.” Brazilian composer Chico Buarque, in his adaptation of Threepenny Opera (Ópera do Malandro), made two versions called “A Volta do Malandro” and “O Malandro No. 2″, with lyrics in Portuguese. The song has been put to many other uses. American parodists the Capitol Steps used the tune for their song “Pack the Knife” in their 2002 album When Bush Comes to Shove. In the mid-1980s, fast food giant McDonald’s introduced “Mac Tonight”, a character whose signature song was based on “Mack the Knife.” Comedian Steve Martin famously parodied “Mack the Knife” in his opening monologue to the premiere of Saturday Night Live’s third season in 1977.

source – wikipedia