Fabulous Friday: "Union Forever" and "Alabama Song"

I just started watching The Civil War, the PBS Ken Burns series from 1990. Can you believe I'd never seen it? It's interesting seeing all of the Ken Burns bells and whistles being laid out at the start of his career. I don't think this one is as strong as The War, the jazz series, or the country music series, but it's still pretty amazing.

The music is always so thoughtfully chosen. "The Battle Cry of Freedom" makes frequent appearances on the series, always played in a tender, intimate style by a violin, banjo, and/or piano or some other small ensemble. Here's a more stout-hearted rendition which I've chosen so you can hear the words. Let me tell you, those snare drums at the beginning make me want to strut around the room and work my fringe.

This song was familiar to me but not in this version. I knew it from a Billy Bragg recording I had on tape back in the 80s, another treasure brought to me by my brother Howard (sometimes I think I should rebrand the Fabulous Friday feature as Hoorah for Howard, he's so often the origin of whatever song I'm giving you). Bragg took the "Battle Cry of Freedom" and gave it new words to be about workers' unions. "The Union Forever!" He's talking about a different union than those Civil War dudes.

Here's a live performance by Bragg with an impassioned intro:

This whole mistaken origin story made me think of "Alabama Song." I did Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's one-act opera Mahagonny Songspiel in college. A guy in my dorm (I won't call him a friend, he was a jerk) was a big Doors fan and was astounded when I told him the song was not a Doors original but was from a German opera first done in 1927! Gobsmacked. Here's the Doors doing their version:

And here are the divine Teresa Stratas and her ragtag group of hookers singing it in the Met's 1978 production of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Stratas was a smoker in real life (Camels, according to Opera News) and I bet she thought it was fun to smoke onstage. The smoking didn't seem to do her any harm - - her high A at 2:28 is luscious.