It was a time when democratic ideals and artistic inspiration were one in the same. If gay rights and women’s equality were worth singing about, the status quo and moral strictures were worth flouting.
It was not long after the turn of the 20th century. Weimar Germany. The hard-won, short-lived peace between the First and Second World Wars, before Hitler’s murderous rise made his Prussian predecessors look lax in comparison. It was a time when popular entertainment was live, every night, in cabarets.
Bourgeois husbands and prim wives flocked to Berlin’s smoky caverns of the night, where the booze, and the satire, flowed freely.
Pointed lyrics. Red hot women. And anthems that resonate still.
German chanteuse Ute Lemper on the cabaret tradtion then and now.
Guests:
Ute Lemper, singer-songwriter, whose latest album is “But One Day…”