DAVID BOWIE - IN BERTOLT BRECHT'S BAAL

In August 1981, Bowie had begun rehearsals to appear in the BBC version of Baal. The lyrics to the songs were all translated by Ralph Manheim and John Willett. Bowie did not think of the television play as a success on broadcast due to its cinematography, but had grown to appreciate it by 1983.[2] Dominic Muldowney provided all new musical settings, except for "The Drowned Girl", which was a setting by Kurt Weill done originally for Das Berliner Requiem. In September 1981, Bowie and Tony Visconti returned to the Hansa studios in Berlin to re-record the five songs Baal performed in the play. "Baal's Hymn" is a combination of the vignettes spread throughout the play and establishes Baal's amoral character. "Remembering Marie A." concerns Baal's reminiscences of a past conquest, where he can remember a cloud drifting overhead but not the face of the girl he was with. "Ballad of the Adventurers" is Baal's aggressive lament to the death of his mother. "The Drowned Girl" relates the suicide