Money Song Lyrics — Cabaret

Song Overview

Review and Highlights

Quick summary

1. What it is: A Kit Kat Klub number from Cabaret, built as a slick chant that turns into a social x-ray.
2. Who drives it: Alan Cumming leads the Emcee line, with the cabaret ensemble snapping the hooks back at him.
3. Where it lands in the story: Act I, as plot money starts to smell like trouble - the club laughs while the city tightens its belt.
4. Why this version matters: The 1998 stage edition drops "Sitting Pretty" and keeps the later money song as its main comment track.
5. Run time: A compact three minutes and change that still finds room for a wink, a sermon, and a door slam.

Cabaret (1998) - stage musical - diegetic. A Kit Kat Klub turn in Act I (after "Maybe This Time" and before "Married"), staged as a nightclub joke that doubles as the evening's sharpest headline. The number is a pressure valve: it vents laughter, then quietly tells you what the characters are about to rationalize.

What I love here is the speed of the pivot. The opener is pure carnival bark - a phrase repeated until it becomes a drum. Then the number lets real cold air in: hunger at the window, a pastor offering comfort instead of help, love sprinting out the door. The structure is theatrical, not pop: short scenes, quick lighting cues, and a chorus that behaves like a crowd you can not fully trust.

Cumming's approach in this recording is lean and sly. He does not belt for glory; he sells the con. The cabaret girls lock in as rhythmic percussion - those "money, money" refrains play like a roulette wheel you can hear. The sound world also fits the Mendes revival's grit: a club band snap, a harder edge, less champagne and more cigarette ash.

Creation History

John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote the show's songs for the stage, but the money gag has a long afterlife across Cabaret versions. The film put a sleek money duet in the club, and later stage editions borrowed and reshaped that idea. The 1998 edition is explicit about the choice: it trims away "Sitting Pretty" and keeps the later money number as the commentary centerpiece. On record, Jay David Saks captures it with studio clarity while preserving the sense of a room full of eyes on the performers.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

The Emcee opens with a mantra: money spins the planet. A quick inventory of currencies follows, like stamps on a passport. Then the number plays out two mini-worlds. In the first, the rich buy distraction, companionship, and recovery. In the second, poverty turns winter into an enemy and makes romance a luxury item. The scene ends on a bitter little truth: when hunger knocks, ideals do not answer the door.

Song Meaning

This is not a love song - it is a transactional map. The track frames cash as a universal language, then shows how fluency divides a room. The point is not that desire is fake; it is that survival rewrites desire into bargaining. You can hear it in the way the chorus turns from sparkle to insistence: repetition becomes a habit, and habit becomes an ethic.

The historical bite matters. Berlin in the early 1930s is often sold as a playground, but economic collapse was a real undertow. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, the 1929 crash hit Germany quickly as foreign loans were pulled, and unemployment rose into the millions by 1932. In that light, the club's chant is a coping mechanism: a party trick that keeps time with panic.

Annotations

"A mark, a yen, a buck or a pound."

On the surface it is a playful roll call, but it also makes the point that greed is multilingual. I take it as the Emcee's global grin: you can change the currency, not the reflex.

"If you happen to be rich... you can pay for a gay escapade."

Cabaret flirts with pleasure as both liberation and commodity. In Weimar Berlin, nightlife could look like freedom - and it could also look like an invoice. The line is cheeky, but it also underlines who gets to treat the city like a toy.

"When you haven't any coal in the stove... and you freeze in the winter."

This verse stops the joke and points at the body. It is not abstract economics; it is shoes, heat, and weight loss. When the show is working, this is where you feel the club lights dim a little.

"He will tell you to love evermore."

The pastor is the softest villain in the number. He offers sentiment as policy. The lyric is not anti-faith so much as anti-denial.

"But when hunger comes to rap... at the window."

The knock is theatrical, almost vaudeville - and that is the trap. The bit is funny until you realize the knock will not stop. It is the sound of necessity interrupting performance.

"See how love flies out the door."

That line lands like a stage slap. It suggests that affection and ethics are conditional when the cupboard is empty. The show places it near plot decisions that smell like compromise, which makes the lyric feel less like a joke and more like a warning.

Rhythm, staging, and the cabaret trick

The driving pulse is the engine of the satire. The chant locks your ear, then the number swaps textures: patter for the rich, then a darker chorus for the poor. It is classic cabaret craft - make them tap along, then make them notice what they are tapping along to.

Symbols and the small hypocrisies

Money becomes a character, not a prop: it "clinks" and "clanks" like a machine with its own appetite. Hunger is literally personified at the window, a comic knock that behaves like fate. Even the rich verse is telling: pleasure is purchased, loneliness is outsourced, recovery is a taxi ride. The number keeps pointing at the same moral: comfort is not only a feeling, it is a bill someone has to pay.

Technical Information

1. Artist: New Broadway Cast of Cabaret (lead vocal: Alan Cumming)
2. Featured: Cabaret Ensemble
3. Composer: John Kander
4. Producer: Jay David Saks
5. Release Date: June 30, 1998
6. Genre: Broadway, musical theatre, cabaret-pop crossover
7. Instruments: Stage band texture (piano and reeds feel central), chorus as rhythmic punctuation
8. Label: RCA Victor / Masterworks Broadway
9. Mood: Slick, satiric, then grimly practical
10. Length: 3:18
11. Track #: 10 (Cabaret - New Broadway Cast Recording)
12. Language: English
13. Album: Cabaret (New Broadway Cast Recording)
14. Music style: Cabaret chant with vaudeville patter and chorus refrains
15. Poetic meter: Accentual lines with trochaic hooks (built for punchlines and repetition)

Questions and Answers

Who produced this 1998 recording?

Jay David Saks, a veteran cast-album producer who also shaped the album's studio polish.

When was it released?

June 30, 1998, as part of the New Broadway cast album issued by RCA Victor.

Who wrote the song?

Music by John Kander and words by Fred Ebb.

Why does the hook repeat so much?

Repetition is the point: it turns currency into a chant, like a ritual you do without thinking.

Is it a comedy number or a warning?

Both. The number uses nightclub humor to slip in a harsher message about compromise and scarcity.

What is the dramatic job of the "Hunger!" knock?

It makes poverty interrupt the performance, forcing the club fantasy to admit the outside world exists.

How does the rich verse work as satire?

It lists luxury solutions to human problems - loneliness, heartbreak, boredom - as if cash is a moral philosophy.

Why does the song name currencies from different countries?

To frame the idea as universal: different money, same mechanism.

How does the 1998 stage edition treat the money sequence compared with earlier versions?

It keeps the later money number as the main club commentary and does not rely on "Sitting Pretty" in its musical-number set.

What performance persona does the Emcee use here?

A salesman of pleasure who also acts like a newsreader - charming, fast, and a little too pleased with the punchline.

Awards and Chart Positions

The track is part of a production that cleaned up on Broadway. Cabaret (1998 revival) won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical, with major acting wins for Alan Cumming and Natasha Richardson. The cast album also entered the awards conversation on the recording side, earning recognition in the Grammy field for musical-theatre albums.

How to Sing Money

Think of this number as acting set to tempo. The groove is steady, the phrasing is sharp, and the real trick is the turn from showman charm into something colder. According to common track-metric databases, the 1998 recording sits around 100 BPM and is often tagged in Ab major. A widely shared vocal-range guide for the Cabaret money number places it roughly between D4 and E5 - useful as a rehearsal target, not a law of nature.

1. Tempo first: Practice the hook on a metronome at 100 BPM. Make the consonants land on the beat, not after it.
2. Diction: Hit the hard sounds in "clinking" and "clanking" like drum accents. This is cabaret percussion as much as singing.
3. Breathing: Take quick, silent breaths before the long list phrases (the rich-verse catalogs). Do not wait until you are empty.
4. Flow and rhythm: Treat the rich verse like patter - forward motion, minimal vibrato, clear storytelling.
5. Accents: Let the chorus refrain feel like a crowd response. Slightly brighten the tone, then let it darken when the poverty verse arrives.
6. Ensemble awareness: If you have backup voices, assign them a "machine" role: consistent volume and crisp entrances, like gears clicking.
7. Mic craft: Keep spoken or half-spoken interjections close to the mic, then step back a touch for louder refrains to avoid harsh peaks.
8. Common pitfalls: Rushing the lists, smearing consonants, and playing only one mood. The number lives on the contrast.
9. Practice materials: Drill the chorus alone, then alternate one rich-verse chunk with one poor-verse chunk, so your body learns the emotional gear shift.

Additional Info

According to Playbill, the cast album hit stores on June 30, 1998, right after the production's Tony wins, and it helped freeze the Mendes revival's sound in amber for people who never set foot in Studio 54. Masterworks Broadway has also described the revival as a tonal shift from splashy spectacle toward something closer to a Kurt Weill-flavored nightclub, which is exactly the alley this track prowls.

If you want to hear how durable the number is, compare three official lanes: the 1972 film sequence, the 1998 cast recording cut, and the more recent London cast recording era where the Emcee again leans into menace. The song survives the costume changes because the premise never gets old: people will trade almost anything for the feeling of safety.

Key Contributors

Sources: Masterworks Broadway, Playbill, Concord Theatricals, Tony Awards, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Discogs, YouTube (Legacy Recordings), Singing Carrots, Tunebat