What Keeps Mankind Alive?
You gentlemen who think you have a mission
To purge us of the seven deadly sins
(2)
Should first sort out the basic food position
Then start your preaching, that's where it begins
You lot, who preach restraint and watch your waist as well
Should learn, for once, the way the world is run
However much you twist, or whatever lies that you tell
Food is the first thing, morals follow on
(3)
So first make sure that those who are now starving
get proper helpings, when we all start carving
What keeps mankind alive?
What keeps mankind alive? The fact that millions
are daily tortured, stifled, punished, silenced and oppressed
Mankind can keep alive thanks to its brilliance
in keeping its humanity repressed
And for once you must try not to shirk the facts
Mankind is kept alive
by bestial acts!
Written by: Original words by Bertolt Brecht
(2) i (3)
LYRICS: Orphans (Bastards): What Keeps Mankind Alive?
~
Translation of the song from the Second Finale
of Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera):
MACHEATH: You gentlemen who think you have a mission
to purge us of the seven deadly sins,
should first sort out the basic food position,
then start your preaching! That's where it begins.
You lot who preach restraint and watch your waist as well,
should learn, for once, the way the world is run:
However much you twist, whatever lies you tell,
food is the first thing, morals follow on.
So first make sure that those who now are starving
get proper helpings when we all start carving.
VOICE OFF-STAGE: What keeps mankind alive?
MACHEATH: What keeps mankind alive? The fact that millions
are daily tortured, stifled, punished, silenced, oppressed.
Mankind can keep alive thanks to its brilliance
in keeping its humanity repressed.
CHORUS: For once you must try not to shirk the facts:
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.
MRS. PEACHUM: You say that girls may strip with your permission.
You draw the line dividing art from sin.
So first sort out the basic food position,
then start your preaching! That's where we begin.
You lot who bank on your desires and our disgust
Should learn for once the way the world is run:
Whatever lies you tell, however much you twist,
food is the first thing, morals follow on.
So first make sure that those who are now starving
get proper helpings when we all start carving.
VOICE OFF-STAGE: What keeps mankind alive?
MRS. PEACHUM: What keeps mankind alive? The fact that millions
are daily tortured, stifled, punished, silenced, oppressed.
Mankind can keep alive thanks to its brilliance
in keeping its humanity repressed.
CHORUS: For once you must try not to shirk the facts:
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.
Adapted from John Gay's 'The Beggar's Opera' (1728 ),
translated from English to German by Brecht's assistant Elisabeth Hauptmann,
This translation back into English was made by Ralph Manheim and John Willett for a later staging.
(In another translation, made by Michael Feingold in 1989,
the song would instead be called 'How Do All Humans Live?')