# Alabama Song
**Alabama Song** (also known as "Moon of Alabama", "Moon Over Alabama" and "Whisky Bar") is a song with lyrics by [Bertolt Brecht](https://www.edgepedia.org/bertolt-brecht) and music by [Kurt Weill](https://www.edgepedia.org/kurt-weill), translated by Elisabeth Hauptmann, first published in the 1926 *Taschenpostille* and carried into Brecht's 1927 collection *Hauspostille* and known from the Mahagonny works: the *Mahagonny-Songspiel* of 1927 and the opera *Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny* (*The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny*).[1](https://musicbrainz.org/work/aa487a25-62db-3673-a570-63a5472d2e85) • [2](http://www.wisskirchen-online.de/downloads/weillalabamasong.pdf) It was written to be sung in English, although the rest of the opera is mainly in German.[3](https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/articles/the-history-of-the-alabama-song/) Its opening line, "Oh show us the way to the next whisky bar", carried it into wide circulation through recordings by [Lotte Lenya](https://www.edgepedia.org/lotte-lenya), The Doors (1967) and David Bowie (UK No. 23 in 1980).[4](https://americansongwriter.com/the-surprising-operatic-origins-of-the-doors-alabama-song-whisky-bar/) • [5](https://www.bowiebible.com/songs/alabama-song/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Credits | Lyrics Bertolt Brecht, music Kurt Weill, translation Elisabeth Hauptmann; publishers Harms Co., Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc., and Universal Edition[1](https://musicbrainz.org/work/aa487a25-62db-3673-a570-63a5472d2e85) |
| Textual history | Taschenpostille (1926), Hauspostille (1927), Mahagonny-Songspiel (premiered 1927), Mahagonny opera (1930)[2](http://www.wisskirchen-online.de/downloads/weillalabamasong.pdf) |
| Dramatic placement | Act I of the opera, sung by the soprano as Jenny with a band of prostitutes; in English within a mainly German opera[3](https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/articles/the-history-of-the-alabama-song/) • [4](https://americansongwriter.com/the-surprising-operatic-origins-of-the-doors-alabama-song-whisky-bar/) |
| Musical idiom | Ground beat on fifth-octave sonorities a tritone apart (c-g-c and fis-cis-fis), g-d drone refrain, shanty call-and-response[2](http://www.wisskirchen-online.de/downloads/weillalabamasong.pdf) |
| First recording | 1930, by Lotte Lenya, who played Jenny[4](https://americansongwriter.com/the-surprising-operatic-origins-of-the-doors-alabama-song-whisky-bar/) |
| Famous covers | The Doors, debut album *The Doors* (1967); David Bowie single (1980), UK No. 23; Marianne Faithfull; Dalida (1980)[3](https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/articles/the-history-of-the-alabama-song/) • [5](https://www.bowiebible.com/songs/alabama-song/) • [6](https://dalida.com/anglais/item/alabama-song-2.html) |
## Origins and authorship
The song went through three stages. A version appeared in the *Taschenpostille* of 1926 and was carried into the *Hauspostille* (1927); from that collection's five Mahagonny songs the *Mahagonny-Songspiel* was assembled and premiered in the same year, and in 1930 the song was taken into the full Mahagonny opera.[2](http://www.wisskirchen-online.de/downloads/weillalabamasong.pdf) Weill wrote the *Mahagonny-Songspiel* on commission from the 1927 [Baden-Baden](https://www.edgepedia.org/baden-baden) music festival committee, and the one-act work was later expanded into a full opera.[4](https://americansongwriter.com/the-surprising-operatic-origins-of-the-doors-alabama-song-whisky-bar/)
Brecht published the poem in the *Hauspostille* ("Home Devotions"), a title playing on [Martin Luther](https://www.edgepedia.org/martin-luther)'s collection of sermons.[4](https://americansongwriter.com/the-surprising-operatic-origins-of-the-doors-alabama-song-whisky-bar/) Because the collection parodies a devotional book, the song, which belongs to Brecht's anti-bourgeois, anarchist-nihilist lyric phase, can be read as an ironic counterpart to a hymn.[2](http://www.wisskirchen-online.de/downloads/weillalabamasong.pdf) [MusicBrainz](https://www.edgepedia.org/musicbrainz) credits Brecht as lyricist, Weill as composer, and Elisabeth Hauptmann as translator of the English text, and lists the work as a translated version of "Alabama Song (from *Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny*)", with later translated versions including a French version and "Song o Alabamie".[1](https://musicbrainz.org/work/aa487a25-62db-3673-a570-63a5472d2e85) The 1927 Mahagonny work has been described both as a one-act chamber opera setting poems by Brecht and Hauptmann and as the *Songspiel* (short satirical work mixing songs and spoken drama) commissioned for the Baden-Baden festival.[3](https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/articles/the-history-of-the-alabama-song/) • [4](https://americansongwriter.com/the-surprising-operatic-origins-of-the-doors-alabama-song-whisky-bar/)
## Lyrics and meaning
In Act I the soprano playing Jenny sings the piece, which was intended from the start to be delivered in English despite the opera's remaining text being composed largely in German.[3](https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/articles/the-history-of-the-alabama-song/) In the Songspiel and the opera it appears in the second scene, sung by a band of prostitutes traveling to the city in search of new customers.[4](https://americansongwriter.com/the-surprising-operatic-origins-of-the-doors-alabama-song-whisky-bar/)
**The imagery.** Alabama, the Southern state, stands for the economic principle of exploitation, for the old and for the great cold cities in which one cannot endure; the newly founded Mahagonny, by contrast, is meant to be the "promised land" flowing with gin and whisky.[2](http://www.wisskirchen-online.de/downloads/weillalabamasong.pdf) The moon, indifferent to the misery below, symbolizes the old God whose fate is sealed.[2](http://www.wisskirchen-online.de/downloads/weillalabamasong.pdf) The song's function also shifted between versions: in the *Hauspostille* it concerns the greed of men, while in Mahagonny, in both the Songspiel and the opera, it is the prostitutes who ply their trade with the customers' desire, a change reflecting the penetration of all spheres of life by the capitalist spirit.[2](http://www.wisskirchen-online.de/downloads/weillalabamasong.pdf)
## Music
Weill's setting is built on a brutally even ground beat on a standing fifth-octave sonority. The sonority shifts with the change from call (Jenny) to response (the six girls), the bass notes moving between c and c-sharp; the two fifth-octave sonorities, c-g-c and fis-cis-fis, stand in a tritone, or "devil", relation.[2](http://www.wisskirchen-online.de/downloads/weillalabamasong.pdf) The refrain rests entirely on a g-d fifth drone, in extreme contrast to the schlager-like, almost romantic "moon" melody.[2](http://www.wisskirchen-online.de/downloads/weillalabamasong.pdf) Weill also adopts the call-and-response principle of shanties and draws on the jazz, Schlager and dance music of the "golden twenties", in a "stile barbaro" recalling Stravinsky's *Sacre* (1913) and Bartók's *Allegro barbaro* (1911).[2](http://www.wisskirchen-online.de/downloads/weillalabamasong.pdf)
## Early recordings and Lenya
The first recording of "Alabama Song" was released in 1930, performed by the Austrian actor Lotte Lenya, who played Jenny in the 1927 *Mahagonny-Songspiel*.[4](https://americansongwriter.com/the-surprising-operatic-origins-of-the-doors-alabama-song-whisky-bar/) After the full opera's Leipzig premiere, the work came to Berlin with Lenya, Weill's then wife, performing Jenny.[3](https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/articles/the-history-of-the-alabama-song/) Her later recording mattered as well: Bowie's version owes much to Lenya's 1956 recording of the song.[5](https://www.bowiebible.com/songs/alabama-song/)
## The Doors, Bowie and later covers
**The Doors.** The Doors' version, titled "Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)", appears on their 1967 debut album *The Doors*, alongside the hit single "Light My Fire".[3](https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/articles/the-history-of-the-alabama-song/) Jim Morrison changed the line "Show me the way to the next pretty boy" to "Show me the way to the next little girl", keeping almost all other A and B section lyrics the same.[4](https://americansongwriter.com/the-surprising-operatic-origins-of-the-doors-alabama-song-whisky-bar/) The track's distinctive marxophone, a hammer zither, was recommended by producer Paul Rothchild, as keyboardist [Ray Manzarek](https://www.edgepedia.org/ray-manzarek) recounted in an episode of *Classic Albums*; Manzarek had never heard of the instrument before.[4](https://americansongwriter.com/the-surprising-operatic-origins-of-the-doors-alabama-song-whisky-bar/)
**David Bowie.** Bowie first performed the Alabama Song on his 1978 tour.[3](https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/articles/the-history-of-the-alabama-song/) He recorded it on 2 July 1978, produced by Bowie and [Tony Visconti](https://www.edgepedia.org/tony-visconti); the studio version was released as a single in February 1980 in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom and [Yugoslavia](https://www.edgepedia.org/yugoslavia), with a 1979 re-recording of "Space Oddity" as b-side, reaching number 23 on the UK singles chart, and was reissued in Germany in 1982 with "Amsterdam" as b-side.[5](https://www.bowiebible.com/songs/alabama-song/) Bowie, a long-time Brecht fan, is described as having covered the song in that spirit.[4](https://americansongwriter.com/the-surprising-operatic-origins-of-the-doors-alabama-song-whisky-bar/)
**Other covers.** The song has also been covered by [Marianne Faithfull](https://www.edgepedia.org/marianne-faithfull) and featured in the film *The World's End*.[3](https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/articles/the-history-of-the-alabama-song/) Dalida recorded it in 1980, credited to Brecht/Weill, singing the English "whiskey bar" lyrics.[6](https://dalida.com/anglais/item/alabama-song-2.html) A University of Tennessee song index catalogs the song in English, classified as both popular song and art song, with first lines "Well, show me the way" (in *The Doors Anthology*) and "Oh show us the way to the next whisky bar" (in *Weill, Kurt: From Berlin to Broadway*, 1984).[7](https://databases.lib.utk.edu/songdb/songdb.php?title=ALABAMA+SONG&word=0)
## The song across versions: comparison
The principal recordings differ in arrangement and audience even though the language stays English throughout.[3](https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/articles/the-history-of-the-alabama-song/) Lenya's recordings place the song in its operatic home, with Jenny as the dramatic speaker and the prostitutes' trade as the subject after the shift from the *Hauspostille* version.[2](http://www.wisskirchen-online.de/downloads/weillalabamasong.pdf) • [3](https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/articles/the-history-of-the-alabama-song/) [The Doors](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-doors)' version features the marxophone in the accompaniment and Morrison's single lyric change, which points the song's desire at "the next little girl".[4](https://americansongwriter.com/the-surprising-operatic-origins-of-the-doors-alabama-song-whisky-bar/) Bowie's version is modeled on Lenya's 1956 recording, and it reached number 23 on the UK singles chart.[5](https://www.bowiebible.com/songs/alabama-song/) Dalida's 1980 recording kept the English "whiskey bar" lyrics.[6](https://dalida.com/anglais/item/alabama-song-2.html)
Critics have read the Mahagonny-Songspiel in two ways: some as a satire of American culture, others as commentary on Weimar corruption and instability.[4](https://americansongwriter.com/the-surprising-operatic-origins-of-the-doors-alabama-song-whisky-bar/)
## Note on the opera's premiere
The year and place of the full opera's premiere are given differently: the German musicological analysis dates the song's incorporation into the Mahagonny opera to 1930,[2](http://www.wisskirchen-online.de/downloads/weillalabamasong.pdf) while the English National Opera history states that the two-act opera *The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny* premiered in Germany in 1931 in Leipzig, with ENO giving the opera its UK premiere in January 1963.[3](https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/articles/the-history-of-the-alabama-song/)
## References
1. [Song "Alabama Song", MusicBrainz](https://musicbrainz.org/work/aa487a25-62db-3673-a570-63a5472d2e85)
2. [Brecht/Weill: Alabama-Song (aus: Mahagonny, 1930), Wisskirchen musicological analysis](http://www.wisskirchen-online.de/downloads/weillalabamasong.pdf)
3. [The History of the Alabama Song, English National Opera](https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/articles/the-history-of-the-alabama-song/)
4. [The Surprising Operatic Origins of The Doors' "Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)", American Songwriter](https://americansongwriter.com/the-surprising-operatic-origins-of-the-doors-alabama-song-whisky-bar/)
5. [Alabama Song, The Bowie Bible](https://www.bowiebible.com/songs/alabama-song/)
6. [Alabama Song, Dalida official site](https://dalida.com/anglais/item/alabama-song-2.html)
7. [Music Library UT Song Index, University of Tennessee, Knoxville](https://databases.lib.utk.edu/songdb/songdb.php?title=ALABAMA+SONG&word=0)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Musical works and recordings › Compositions and songs › Standard and pre-rock popular songs*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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