For this song we head over to Deutschland for the strains of (alleged) songstress and actress Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich had a lengthy career as a singer, movie star and cabaret performer and was known for her sultry, oppulent and exotic looks, as well as being very fashion-forward by wearing menswear, creating an androgynous look. Born in what is now a district of Berlin in 1901, Dietrich initally wanted to be a concert violinist, but a wrist injury kiboshed that. She began acting and got her big break in 1930's The Blue Angel. She soon became one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood, although her screen acting career didn't last a super long time, as her films became knows as 'box office poison'. It is said that in 1939 the Nazi party approached her and offered her a boatload of money to move back to Germany and appear in a movie about the Third Reich, but she turned them down flat and applied for U.S. citizenship later that year. She started a stage act where she toured North Africa, Italy and Iceland entertaining the Allied troops with American night club comedian Danny Thomas. She successfully segued into a world tour cabaret act that took up most of the rest of her career. She employed song master and hair wunderkind Burt Bacharach to arrange songs that would hide her limited contralto vocal range. Dietrich pretty much ended her career after falling off the stage and breaking her thigh, became an alcoholic and addicted to pain killers and spent the last 11 of her 90 years bedridden in her apartment in Paris.
So the song Lili Marleen was born the same way a lot of German lieder was - it started out as a poem and was eventually set to music some time later. Originally recorded in 1938, the song didn't make much of a splash until WWII when a radio station in Begrade, Serbia (at the time Yugoslavia) started playing it for the occupying German troops. The song became a big hit for the soldiers in part due to its nostalgic nature (it's about a girl back home) and soon it became the theme song for Erwin Rommel's soldiers in North Africa. It eventually became a big deal for the Allied troops (who were listening in) and English and French versions were recorded. Marlene Dietrich recorded the song in 1944, and performed it in her subsequent cabaret act as well as in the movie Judgement at Nuremberg.
Thoughts:
Kelly:
Ohh, I really like this song. It reminds me of all that Berthold Brecht/Kurt Weill/German Weimar cabaret type music that I really enjoy. The accordion makes it so nostalgic - I can imagine Dietrich amble down the main strasse in Berlin, cigarette in hand, exchanging niceties with passers-by. I can see why Allied radio picked it up as well, because with French lyrics it could easily sound like a French composition (and the French really seem to have the market cornered on nostalgie, don't they?) The clarinet sounds good too, and although La Dietrich is no Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, I enjoy the husky quality of her voice and her delivery. I had no idea that she sang or was involved in performing for the troops, I thought she was just a moody actress, so that was a cool thing to learn. It was also cool to learn that she was a woman after my own heart and was a gay icon, loving the active gay cabaret scene of 1920s Berlin. Nice work, Dietrich! 4.5/5
Holly:
Lili Marleen (Marlene Dietrich): Ok, so Marlene Dietrich is not a good singer. Her voice is husky, yes, sultry, sure. But good – nope. I kind of like the background accordion playing. It’s got a really weird tone to it, and it’s almost played as a wind instrument would play some of those lines. I also quite like the song itself. We seem to be in a long list of songs with great historical import, which this song also possesses. Taking into account that I like the song, and the arrangement, but not the singing, I’m giving this a 3.5/5
Lili Marleen - Marlene Dietrich
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