{"id":2919,"date":"2017-07-08T07:00:56","date_gmt":"2017-07-08T11:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=2919"},"modified":"2018-04-04T18:29:42","modified_gmt":"2018-04-04T22:29:42","slug":"a-mans-a-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/a-mans-a-man\/","title":{"rendered":"A Man&#8217;s a Man (Bertolt Brecht\/Dave Van Ronk)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"A Man&#039;s a Man\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2249HZAHxDo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The title song from Bertolt Brecht&#8217;s early play <em>Mann ist Mann<\/em>, this was my professional recording debut, arranging and playing guitar for Dave Van Ronk. Dave was a great interpreter of Brecht&#8217;s songs, and even appeared <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2921 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Brecht-CD-cover-296x300.jpg?resize=296%2C300\" alt=\"\" width=\"296\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Brecht-CD-cover.jpg?resize=296%2C300&amp;ssl=1 296w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Brecht-CD-cover.jpg?w=300&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 296px) 100vw, 296px\" \/>in an off-Broadway production of <em>The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny<\/em>, singing the &#8220;Alabama Song.&#8221; He recorded that, and &#8220;Mack the Knife,&#8221; and his own fine translation of &#8220;As You Make Your Bed,&#8221; and then in the early 1980s Gary Cristall arranged for him to do a Brecht workshop at the Vancouver Folk Festival with the English singer Frankie Armstrong, and then for them to do an album together for his Aural Tradition record label.<\/p>\n<p>I happened to be in Vancouver in the summer of 1982 or thereabouts when Dave came to record and, since he didn&#8217;t have any of his New York stalwarts around, I figured it was my chance to get on a Van Ronk session. So I volunteered and Dave &#8212; by way of gently brushing me off &#8212; said, &#8220;If you can come up with a decent arrangement for &#8216;A Man&#8217;s a Man,&#8217; I&#8217;ve always wanted to do that one.&#8221; He added that it would have to be an arrangement that could be capoed up the neck, since he didn&#8217;t know what key was good for him, then left to play at the Edmonton folk festival.<\/p>\n<p>In those days before the internet it wasn&#8217;t easy to find a recording of the song, but fortunately <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/we-sell-everything\/\">my friend and hostess<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/we-sell-everything\/\">Maggie <\/a>found a copy of Eric Bentley&#8217;s Brecht album in the library at Simon Fraser University. Fortunately, again, Bentley was a pretty rudimentary pianist and played a simple ragtime accompaniment that transferred easily to the bottom five frets of the guitar&#8230; so when Dave got back to Vancouver, there I was with an arrangement and he was stuck.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2922\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Peter-Lorre-in-Mann-Ist-Mann-1931-248x300.jpg?resize=248%2C300\" alt=\"\" width=\"248\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Peter-Lorre-in-Mann-Ist-Mann-1931.jpg?resize=248%2C300&amp;ssl=1 248w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Peter-Lorre-in-Mann-Ist-Mann-1931.jpg?w=317&amp;ssl=1 317w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 248px) 100vw, 248px\" \/>Brecht wrote <em>Mann ist Mann <\/em>in 1924 and described it as a comedy, apparently taking Chaplin&#8217;s films as a model. He directed the most famous production of it in Berlin in 1931, starring Peter Lorre, who performed during breaks from the shooting schedule of <em>M<\/em>. It was meant to exemplify Brecht&#8217;s theories of modern theater, and was acted in a highly stylized manner, fitting his theory of &#8220;alienation&#8221; &#8212; which in this case apparently meant &#8220;purposefully presenting the character in an episodic and incoherent manner in order to emphasize the changing nature of social relations.&#8221;* Berlin audiences were effectively alienated, and it closed in five days.<\/p>\n<p>Dave also considered alienation a useful performance technique, though what <em>he <\/em>meant was that you can make a lyric more effective by framing it in a way that goes directly against its meaning: singing a tender lyric in a rough voice, or a brutal lyric over a gentle accompaniment. This song is a perfect example, using a perky ragtime tune and cheery chit-chat to underline the dehumanizing horror of war. The soldiers are interchangeable cogs, all named Dan, all having the same experiences, and all meaninglessly expendable.<\/p>\n<p>I worked this out for Dave and had no plans to sing it myself, but <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/pancho-lefty\/\">my friend Monte<\/a> fell in love with it while I was practicing for the session and made me do it whenever I was back in town, and I got to like it.<\/p>\n<p>As for the Brecht album, it came out in 1989 and this song was Dave&#8217;s weakest performance on it &#8212; he had very little practice time, and sounds rushed &#8212; but he&#8217;d been singing the other songs for decades and did them brilliantly, in particular an a cappella version of the title song, &#8220;Let No One Deceive You&#8221;:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Let No One Deceive You (Dave Van Ronk sings Bertolt Brecht)\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_qrnkYCVZvE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>*<span class=\"addmd\">Sarah Thomas<\/span>, <em>Peter Lorre, Face Maker<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The title song from Bertolt Brecht&#8217;s early play Mann ist Mann, this was my professional recording debut, arranging and playing guitar for Dave Van Ronk. Dave was a great interpreter of Brecht&#8217;s songs, and even appeared in an off-Broadway production of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, singing the &#8220;Alabama Song.&#8221; He &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/a-mans-a-man\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A Man&#8217;s a Man (Bertolt Brecht\/Dave Van Ronk)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Man&#039;s a Man (Bertolt Brecht\/Dave Van Ronk) - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/a-mans-a-man\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Man&#039;s a Man (Bertolt Brecht\/Dave Van Ronk) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The title song from Bertolt Brecht&#8217;s early play Mann ist Mann, this was my professional recording debut, arranging and playing guitar for Dave Van Ronk. Dave was a great interpreter of Brecht&#8217;s songs, and even appeared in an off-Broadway production of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, singing the &#8220;Alabama Song.&#8221; He &hellip; Continue reading A Man&#8217;s a Man (Bertolt Brecht\/Dave Van Ronk) &rarr;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/a-mans-a-man\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-07-08T11:00:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-04-04T22:29:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Brecht-CD-cover-296x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/a-mans-a-man\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/a-mans-a-man\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"headline\":\"A Man&#8217;s a Man (Bertolt Brecht\\\/Dave Van Ronk)\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-07-08T11:00:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-04-04T22:29:42+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/a-mans-a-man\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":647,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/a-mans-a-man\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/06\\\/Brecht-CD-cover-296x300.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/a-mans-a-man\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/a-mans-a-man\\\/\",\"name\":\"A Man's a Man (Bertolt Brecht\\\/Dave Van Ronk) - 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From Dave Van Ronk, via Charley Jordan, Lemon Jefferson, and others...","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"No Dirty Names","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/No-Dirty-Names.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3229,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/urge-for-going\/","url_meta":{"origin":2919,"position":2},"title":"Urge for Going (Joni Mitchell\/Dave Van Ronk)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"November 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The ultimate fall-into-winter song, by Joni Mitchell, arranged by Dave Van Ronk. I tend to be more optimistic about this season, so my standard autumn song is Bill Morrissey's \"My Baby and Me,\" but I always loved the way Dave did this -- plus, my Vancouver buddy Monte Jones had\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/van-ronk-polydor.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1135,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/georgia-rag\/","url_meta":{"origin":2919,"position":3},"title":"Georgia Rag (with advice from Dave Van Ronk)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"May 21, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"My largely accidental reworking of a great Blind Willie McTell piece, illustrating a long disquisition on my first lesson with Dave Van Ronk, and so forth.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/six-black-blues-mann.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1347,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/friend-of-mine\/","url_meta":{"origin":2919,"position":4},"title":"He Was a Friend of Mine (Dave Van Ronk &#038;co)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 9, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This was one of the first songs I ever heard from Dave Van Ronk, and remained a staple of his repertoire throughout his career. When he recorded it in 1963 he credited it to Bob Dylan, but in later years would say, \"I learned this from Bob Dylan, who learned\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"von schmidt - cahn","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/von-schmidt-cahn.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":950,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/mister-noah\/","url_meta":{"origin":2919,"position":5},"title":"Mister Noah (Dave Van Ronk\/Frank Shay)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"April 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This is another amusing tidbit from Dave Van Ronk: Folksinger, and is probably the first song I learned off that record, because if you hear it once or twice, you know it, like it or not. I don't know where Dave learned it,* but a similar four-verse version was printed\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"My Pious Friends","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/My-Pious-Friends.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2919"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3675,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2919\/revisions\/3675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}