12-8-2000

 

Tom  Lehrer
(1928-   )

Music, here

Alma


The loveliest girl in Vienna

Was Alma, the smartest as well

Once you picked her up on your antenna

You'd never be free of her spell


Her lovers were many and varied

From the day she began her beguine

There were three famous ones whom she married

And God knows how many between


Alma, tell us

All modern women are jealous

Which of your magical wands

Got you Gustav and Walter and Franz


The first one she married was Mahler

Whose buddies all knew him as Gustav

And each time he saw her he'd holler

"Ach, that is the fräulein I moost hav"

 
 

Alma Mahler - Jugendfoto

Their marriage, however, was murder

He'd scream to the heavens above

"I'm writing 'Das Lied von der Erde'

And she only wants to make love!"

 

Alma, tell us

All modern women are jealous

You should have a statue in bronze

For bagging Gustav and Walter and Franz

 

While married to Gus, she met Gropius

And soon she was swinging with Walter

Gus died, and her tear drops were copious

She cried all the way to the altar

 

But he would work late at the Bauhaus

And only come home now and then

She said, "What am I running, a chow house

It's time to change partners again"


Alma, tell us

All modern women are jealous

Though you didn't even use Ponds

You got Gustav and Walter and Franz


While married to Walt she'd met Werfel

And he too was caught in her net

He married her, but he was carefel

'Cause Alma was no Bernadette


And that is the story of Alma

Who knew how to receive and to give

The body that reached her embalma

Was one that had known how to live


Alma, tell us

How can they help being jealous

Ducks always envy the swans

Who get Gustav and Walter

You never did falter

With Gustav and Walter and Franz



Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel (1879-1964) foi uma das grandes amantes do sec. XX. Todos os seus homens foram génios. Casou em 1902 com Gustav Mahler, o compositor, que veio a falecer em 1911. Em 1915 casou com Walter Gropius, o Arquitecto da Bauhaus, com o qual já tivera uma aventura em 1910. Finalmente em 1929, casou com o escritor Franz Werfel, autor da "Canção de Bernardette", do qual enviuvou em 1945.  Após a morte de Mahler, teve um affair com  o pintor Oskar Kokoschka, de quem permaneceu amiga toda a vida.

À morte de Alma, o compositor Tom Lehrer, escreveu esta canção jocosa, que as biografias dela transcrevem.

 
 

Another page about Alma Mahler, here