By clasping her in their slimy grip Through her limbs, the cold blooded fishes played Creatures and plant life kept on, thus obstructing her last trip And the sky that same evening grew dark as smoke And its stars through the night kept the brightness still soaring But it quickly grew clear when dawn now broke To see that she got one further morning Once her pallid trunk had rotted beyond repair It happened quite slowly that she gently slipped from God's thoughts First with her face,then her hands, right at the last with her hair Leaving those corpse-choked rivers just one more corpse
Whilst his mother's womb contained the growing Baal Even then the sky was waiting quiet and pale Naked, young, immensely marvellous Like Baal loved it, when he came to us
That same sky remained with him in joy and care Even when Baal slept peaceful and unaware At night a lilac sky, a drunken Baal Turning pious as the sky grows pale
So through hospital, cathedral, whiskey bar Baal kept moving onwards and just let things go
When Baal's tired, boys, Baal cannot fall far He will have his sky down there below
When the sinners congregated in shame together Baal lay naked, revelling in their distress Only sky, a sky that will go on forever Formed a blanket for his nakedness
And that lusty girl, the world, who'll laughing yield To the men who'll stand the pressure of her thighs Sometimes gave him love-bites, such as can't be healed
Baal survived it, he just used his eyes And when Baal saw lots of corpses scattered round He felt twice the thrill, despite the lack of room "Space enough" said Baal, "then I'll thicken the ground Space enough within this woman's womb"
Any vice for Baal has got its useful side It's the man who practices it, he can't abide Vices have their point, once you see it as such Stick to two for one will be too much
Slackness, softness are the sort of things to shun Nothing could be harder than the quest for fun Lots of strength is needed and experience too Swollen bellies can embarrass you Under gloomy stars and this poor veil of tears Baal will graze a pasture till it disappears Once it's been digested to the forest's teeth Baal trod singing for a well earned sleep
Baal can spot the vultures in the stormy sky As they wait up there to see if Baal will die Sometimes Baal pretends he's dead, but vultures swoop Baal in silence dines on vulture-soup When the dark womb drags him down to its prize
What's the world still mean to Baal, he's overfed So much sky is lurking still behind his eyes He'll just have enough sky when he's dead Once the Earth's dark womb engulfed the rotting Baal Even then the sky was up there, quiet and pale Naked, young, immensely marvellous Like Baal loved it when he lived with us
Baal è un'opera di Bertold Brecht scritta quando aveva vent'anni. Parla di un anti-eroe che rigetta le convenzioni della borghesia del tempo. Vive da outsider ed ha i modi di un criminale. Porta al suicidio una delle sue amanti e manda alla rovina altre donne. E' responsabile anche della morte di un suo amico. Muore in solitudine vagando per il bosco. Per ulteriori notizie
