The Shark That Connects
A tale that shows how cultures are intertwined, connected and shared.
Maybe like me, you immediately start smiling when you hear that typical deep rasping sound of Louis Armstrong's voice, singing about the shark that "has pretty teeth, dear". I heard it often growing up, and it conjures up emotions of a safe and happy childhood. Released in 1956, about 2 decades before I was released into this world, it was not the first version of the song, I learned many years later. Well, learned might be a big word for this. It was one of these moments where you suddenly see how all the puzzle pieces you have, but might not even be aware of having, fall into place. For me, this moment was in a theatre in The Hague. My parents often went there to see plays. The theatre was home to theatre group The Apple, which was known for innovative and new ways of staging well-known plays and their own work, mixing the performing arts together into great plays. It was there that I saw (their version of) the Dreigroschenoper, or Three Penny Opera, by Bertold Brecht. An opera originally written in the 1920s, inspired by another opera. It is the story of, you've guessed it, Mack the Knife.
It can very well be that you do not know the Dreigroschenoper. Or even that song by Louis Armstrong. Several others have recorded the same song in later years, of which Robbie Williams might very well be the most popular one.
I'm a dot-connector. I like connecting seemingly unconnected things. One little thing is that Bertolt Brecht and I share our birthday. But that's not what's interesting. What I like here, is that a song by a famous American artist was covered from a song out of an opera written and composed by a French-German team. This shows how interconnected our cultures are. How many things we share and have in common.
That is the point of this story. It's always easy to find differences with others, and reject them for it. But it's just as easy to see our commonalities. And more fun.
Enjoy the music, keep looking for what connects us.
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Photo credit for the shark photo: photo by David Clode on Unsplash