Pirate Jenny

When I was in school (about sixth grade or so, I think), a class of older students performed the Threepenny  Opera by Kurt Weill, and I became kind of infatuated with Pirate Jenny (in German: Seeräuberjenny), a song from said opera and character in this song. For days, my best friend and I would try to sing the "Schiff mit acht Segeln"/"ship, a black freighter" part (and fail horribly, I might add).

I then saw a performance of the Threepenny Opera in one of the local theatres a few years ago and started searching for versions of the song on youtube. Somehow I seem to have missed the best ones, and I forgot all about it until I kind of stumbled upon a version by Amanda Palmer.



Now, as a former opera singer to be it took me some getting used to her style of singing, but I've grown to like her very much, and she is a fabulous artist. (Her latest album is downloadable for the price you want to pay, by the way).

I found another version of Pirate Jenny by Ute Lemper, a German singer. I think this is by far the best performance, I am absolutely amazed at how versatile her voice is.



To think that this is the German voice of sweet Arielle... Would you have believed it?

After listening to so many versions of the song (there are more to be found, of course, and I listened to many of them), I became inspired once more by Pirate Jenny, and I decided to spin a yarn (what else?!).

I put in skull beads (one of my favourite ingredients, as you might have noticed by now), coin charms for the penny which is referred to in the song, and ripped pieces of cotton fabric for the rags. I also added rust red linen for some texture.