Cabaret Songs

Cabaret songs have been in existence for a little more than a cen¬tury, which makes the genre surveyable. The reasons for its former pop¬ularity and recent decline in Europe and for its continued popularity in the USA can be discerned. If, however, we are asked for a precise definition of what a "cabaret song" is - as compared to other kinds of songs¬ e.g., pop songs or jazz songs we soon find ourselves confronted with considerable difficulties. The simplest imaginable answer that a cabaret song is a song performed in a cabaret or nightclub of a certain, originally European, type, is not necessarily true. Cabaret songs can be heard in music halls, in movies and on recordings of all kinds. As we shall see, we aim with the term at a certain style of performance rather than song, even though obviously not every kind of text can be performed as a cabaret song.