"Mack The Knife" (German: "Die Moritat Von Mackie Messer"), is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their 1928 music drama The Threepenny Opera. The song has become a popular standard recorded by many artists, but the most successful version was the Bobby Darin recording, released in August 1959. A Moritat is a medieval version of the murder ballad performed by strolling ministrels. In The Threepenny Opera, the Moritat singer with his street organ introduces and closes the drama with the tale of the deadly Mackie Messer, or Mack The Knife, a character based on the dashing highwayman Macheath in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera. The Brecht-Weill version of the character was more cruel and sinister and has been transformed into a modern anti-hero. Bobby Darin's "Mack The Knife" led the US Billboard Hot 100 for 9 weeks and earned him a Grammy Award for the Record Of The Year. On the Global Chart it was the most successful song of 1959.