The songs of Marlene Dietrich

There are some people whose music you listen to who don't really have what one might call a good voice, but you have their records anyway because they write excellent songs (Tom Waits) or they're icons (Willie Nelson) or because there's no way that you could ever be a card-carrying American if you didn't (Madonna).

And then there's Marlene Dietrich. I got one of her albums because I thought it would be a nice campy addition to a cocktail party. I mean, in the pantheon of camp saints she's right up there with Joan Crawford and Ethel Merman. One of my friends says that in every song she sounds like she's saying, "I'm sooo tiiiiirrreed." But in German, which has the added bonus of making her sound like she's pissy at the same time. It's hard to argue with the camp factor when you hear her German version of "Surrey with the Fringe on Top." Which may be one of my prized possessions, by the way.

But last year I saw a documentary on her and, no shit, I bawled through the whole thing. What a fucking life. She stars in one of the most influential films of all time, "The Blue Angel," she comes to the United States, she's labeled box office poision, she makes a comeback, she renounces Nazism and becomes an American citizen. And then the U.S. goes to war.

She's separated from her mother and doesn't talk to her or find out her fate until after the war. She has to split up with her boyfriend for the duration of the war. She risks her life by speaking out against Hitler. She heads to the front lines and finds happiness entertaining GIs. The war ends and she feels she's lost her purpose; she's reunited with her boyfriend, but they've changed too much to go on; she longs for the camaraderie of the soldiers; she basically loses her movie career and heads to the last resort for all stars, Vegas; she feels that she's losing her looks and locks herself away so that her fans don't see her.

And you can hear all of that in her music. I have no idea what she's saying in half of the songs, but fuck all is it sad. Here are my favorites:

1) "Falling in Love Again"
2) "Lili Marlene"
3) "I Never Slept a Wink Last Night"