Theatre
By Numbers
Cabaret By Numbers: Every song in the stage musical
Here’s your breakdown of every song on the soundtrack of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club
Cabaret is a dark, deeply clever show, and the version at the Kit Kat Club at the Playhouse Theatre draws you further into its heart than ever. Frothy and comic on the surface and unsettling beneath, the Cabaret soundtrack is worth diving into ahead of your visit or listening back through to help you digest what you’ve seen. Here’s our breakdown of every song in the stage musical of Cabaret
‘Willkommen’
The Kit Kat Club’s Emcee warms up the crowd with aid of the cabaret girls, welcoming us to the venue and kicking off the show. He jokes with the audience as he introduces each of the cabaret girls, followed by the cabaret boys, promising that they and he will together make everyone’s troubles disappear, because inside the Kit Kat Club, life is beautiful. We also meet lead performer Sally Bowles.
Key lyric: “Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome! Im cabaret, au cabaret, to cabaret!”
‘So What’
American writer Clifford Bradshaw arrives in Berlin and finds a boarding house, at the recommendation of his seedy new acquaintance Ernst Ludwig. After a negotiation, the boarding house proprietress Fräulein Schneider agrees to let Cliff stay for half the price. In this number, she asserts that she has to take what she’s offered in life.
Key lyric: “It will all go on if we’re here or not/So who cares? So what?”
‘Don’t Tell Mama’
Cliff visits the Kit Kat Club and sees English singer Sally Bowles perform for the first time. In this suggestive track, Sally confides to the audience that her mother thinks she’s living in a convent, and begs them to keep her new profession under wraps. Jokingly, one by one she reveals all other family members to be in on the secret, but insists that her mother must never know.
Key lyric: “So let’s trust one another/Keep this from my mother/Though I’m still as pure as mountain snow”
‘Mein Herr’
Cliff and Sally begin getting to know each other, before she returns to the stage to perform her final number of the night. She and the chorus girls sing this mockingly mournful number, in which Sally describes ending a love affair because she is too free-spirited to be tied down.
Key lyric: “It was a fine affair, but now it’s over/And though I used to care, I need the open air”
‘Perfectly Marvelous’
The next day, Sally turns up at Cliff’s boarding house, having just been fired and kicked out by her boyfriend, nightclub owner Max. She convinces Cliff to let her live in his room with him, feeding him the lines he should recite if someone questions the arrangement.
Key lyric: “Yes, I’ve this perfectly marvellous girl/In my perfectly beautiful room/And we’re living together and having a marvellous time!”
‘Two Ladies’
The Emcee, accompanied by two nightclub girls, sings a tongue-in-cheek song about how living with two female companions is even better than living with one.
Key lyric: “Twosies beats onesies/But nothing beats threes!”
‘It Couldn’t Please Me More’
In the boarding house, elderly Jewish gentleman Herr Scultz gifts a pineapple to Fräulein Schneider as a romantic gift. She is overcome by his generosity, and he is thrilled by her response.
Key lyric: “It couldn’t please me more/Than to see you cling/To the pineapple I bring”
‘Tomorrow Belongs To Me’
In the Kit Kat Club, a waiter starts to sing. The song is at first a patriotic ode to the Fatherland. As others in the club join in, the first vague influences of Nazi ideology begin to make themselves felt.
Key lyric: “But somewhere a glory awaits unseen/Tomorrow belongs to me”
‘Maybe This Time’
Sally discovers she is pregnant, but is unsure who the father is. To her surprise, Cliff is excited and wants her to keep the child, believing it will lend purpose to his life. Sally reflects on the fact that this relationship could be the first one to offer her lifelong stability and comfort – she doesn’t quite believe it, but she wants to.
Key lyric: “Maybe this time, for the first time/Love won’t hurry away”
‘Money’
Ernst offers Cliff a job: pick up a suitcase in Paris and deliver it to a client in Berlin. Cliff is surprised by the high wage offered for the job and accepts instantly. The Emcee and the cabaret girls sing this song about the seductive power of money, seeming to suggest that anyone’s morals are easily bought in this day and age.
Key lyric: “That clinking, clanking, clunking sound/Is all that makes the world go ’round”
‘Married’
When Fräulein Schneider’s reputation is threatened, Herr Schultz proposes. He convinces Fräulein Schneider that marriage can transform a life for the better.
Key lyric: “See a palace rise from a two-room flat/Due to one little word: ‘married’”
‘Tomorrow Belongs To Me – Reprise’
At Fräulein Schneider and Herr Schultz’s engagement party, Ernst, now wearing a Nazi armband, warns Fräulein Schneider that she is unwise to marry a Jew. As the characters look on, aware that something is changing, Fräulein Kost leads the company in a darker rendition of ‘Tomorrow Belongs To Me’.
Key lyric: “The morning will come when the world is mine/Tomorrow belongs to me”
‘Kickline’
Opening the second act, the Emcee and the cabaret girls perform a kickline routine which transforms into a goosestep.
‘If You Could See Her’
At the Kit Kat Club, the Emcee performs a routine with a woman in a gorilla suit, singing a song about how their love is judged by people who don’t understand. However, the song is ultimately revealed to be based on an antisemitic joke.
Key lyric: “But if you could see her through my eyes/She wouldn’t look Jewish at all”
‘What Would You Do?’
Following a string of frightening incidents, Fräulein Schneider returns Cliff and Sally’s engagement present, telling them her marriage has been called off. Cliff tries to convince her to reconsider, but she insists that she feels she has no other choice.
Key lyric: “What would you do/My brave young friend?”
‘I Don’t Care Much’
Cliff wishes to leave Berlin with Sally and raise their child elsewhere, but Sally insists on closing her eyes to the political situation and leaves to work at the club. The Emcee sings this song, hinting at Sally’s wilful ignorance.
Key lyric: “So if you kiss me, if we touch/Warning’s fair/I don’t care very much”
‘Cabaret’
After Cliff attacks Ernst over an antisemitic comment, he is beaten by Ernst’s bodyguards and ejected from the Kit Kat Club. Sally takes to the stage to sing this song, clinging desperately to her denial and unable to admit that anything dark is happening in Berlin. She tells a story about a friend she lost and hints that she wishes to drink herself to death in the same way.
Key lyric: “No use permitting some prophet of doom/To wipe every smile away/Life is a cabaret, old chum/Come to the cabaret”
‘Finale’
Sally has an abortion and Cliff leaves for Paris, unable to convince her to follow. He writes about the Germany he’s leaving behind, as the show’s opening number returns in a far more unsettling fashion, with the Nazi movement overtaking the country.
Key lyric: “(spoken) Where are your troubles now? Forgotten? I told you so!/We have no troubles here”
Cabaret is currently playing at the Kit Kat Club at the Playhouse Theatre – find your tickets here
