Marlene Dietrich

(album: Cavalcade - 2021)

Under soft lights
With a taped-back face
Our soft-spoken queen
Takes her place on the stage

As the big curtains open
The last troops run in quick
For the one and only
Marlene Dietrich

She whispers demurely
"From 'The Blue Angel'..."
The song we all know
The one that we've paid for
Fills the hall tight
And pulls at our hearts
And puts in her place
The girl she once was
In that suit of '33
Soundtracked by disapproving commentary

And my, my shuddering neighbour
Turns and roughly rouses me
He says, "While a kiss on the lips
May not make a frog a prince
An orgasm renders any queen a witch:
Metamorphosis exists!"

Damn all us idiots
Damn us till death
Relentlessly trying to untie our knots
Of rivers and roads that defy all sense

But her hands loosen all
And her voice brings you youth
Her cheeks cradle the holy breath
That pumps the lungs of her Mackie Messer

And she beats the heart of her Mackie Messer
And she walks the stage with her Mackie Messer
And she makes us smile with her Mackie Messer