France remembers Jacques Brel

There is an excuse today for some musical nostalgia. Jacques Brel died exactly 30 years ago. Most people reading this blog will need no introduction. But I'll provide a little since some otherwise well-educated colleagues in London told me that they had never heard of the man who is probably the most widely revered French-language singer-poet of modern times.

Brel was a Belgian who wrote and sang passionate, bitter, sardonic ballads in the 1950s and 1960s before retiring young to the south Pacific and dying of lung cancer at the age of 49. He was a magnetic performer and an admired actor and film director. For people who lived those years, his anthems -- Madeleine, Les Bourgeois, Le Plat Pays, La Valse à Quatre Temps, Le Port d'Amsterdam -- are as much part of the soul as Beatles tunes are for English-speakers of that generation. Non-Francophones certainly know Ne Me Quitte Pas, which was reprised by Sinatra, Nina Simone, David Bowie and many others as If You Go Away.

The air is full of those tunes today and not just for the oldies. Abd Al Malik, a rap artist, has just had a hit with Brel's Ces gens-là. Brel's records still sell over 200,000 a year in France, more than those of any dead artist, including Edith Piaf and Serge Gainsbourg.

Last night an anonymous Belgian paid 108,000 euros (150,000 dollars) for the  little notebook in which Brel composed Amsterdam [picture below and video]. The item was one of 94 of Brel's possessions that were auctioned by Sotheby's in Paris. The whole lot, including guitars, assorted other manuscripts and papers, brought in over a million euros (1.4 million dollars).

   

The first such sale of a popular entertainer's memorabilia in France was preceded by a spat between the owners and Brel's widow and daughters who claimed that they had no right to them. This is because they were passed down to relatives by Sylvie Rivet, the mistress with whom Brel lived for most of the 1960s. France Brel, 55, one of the daughters, said: "It is odious and mean. We have tried all kinds of ways to stop the sale...These things are unuseable because we are the only ones who have the rights to have them."

Brel, a politically engagé satirist, would certainly have been amused at the unseemly squabble and the rush to buy his things.

The singer is regarded more than ever as a Gallic treasure and monument to the tradition of chanson française. President Sarkozy carries his songs in his iPod, according to Carla Bruni. But he is worshipped in Belgium as one of the country's immortals. Brel, born in a comfortable Brussels family, had a love-hate tie to the country that he left as a young man. "I am attached to my country but it stirs in me great anger," he said. He had no time for the quarrel, greater now than ever, between the Dutch-speaking Flemish and the French speakers of the southern half. Anyone trying to get a feel for Belgium should listen to Brel singing Le Plat Pays, his melancholic ode to Belgium, in both French and Dutch.

   

"Miche", as Brel called his wife, is visiting his grave in the Marquesas Islands today. He is buried there near the tomb of Gauguin. In Tahiti yesterday, she said: "Jacques would never have imagined that 30 years on, they would be still be commemorating him year after year, from one generation to another."

Brel became a passionate aviator and was running his own air service in the islands at the time of his death. His pilot's licence and other flying souvenirs sold at Sotheby's for 34,350 euros (see the photo of his plane on my last post).

Comments

[Lex]

Don't know who Jacques Brel is? Amazing. I suppose they have never heard of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht either. Oh well, their loss.

[dot king]

Didn't Brel also create air links between islands when he retired to Les Marquises? Thus he made a huge contribution to their prosperity and even set up a flying school.

If anyone who doesn't read French wants to read a Brel biography, then the one to AVOID is by Alan Clayson. I was given this a a present a couple of years ago and all that comes through is the author' dislike of his subject, some very inaccurate translations of Brel's lyrics and some highly doubtful psychoanalysis based on the bad translations.

I used "Les Bonbons" (which he says he wrote in five minutes, but it became one of his most popular songs) for listening exercises teaching French to Anglophone kids here - it's a good base for understanding, questions, answers, and recognising "voices" - one of which isn't heard and one side of the "conversation" has to be imagined/invented -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWPl5hDjhoo

that exercise complete, I would throw in "Les Bourgeois" as a special offer.

I'd find it difficult to select a favourite Brel song.

CB you forgot Shirley Bassey "If you go away" tsk tsk

[dot king]

It's always a bit daunting when someone "revisits" Brel, ready to have teeth on edge, all that, but in the case of Abd Al Malik, I think Brel would have approved of the update and adaptation of "Les autres".

Maybe Brel was the original slammer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtXKot_jq8o

Live on "Taratata", still one of the best live music shows on TV.

[Eric]

I know next to nothing of French. Could someone please let me know if Brel sings/speaks with a distinctly Brussels accent?
[Yes, he had a Belgian accent. Not a strong one. I am ready to be corrected by any native speakers here. CB]

[azloon]

we parochial americans know brel from the late 60s off-broadway musical review 'jacques brel is alive and living in paris.' it had a touring company which performed a a theater on rush street (name?) in chicago where i saw it several times. good stuff.

even the translated lyrics (by eric blau) were amazing so i can only imagine their impact for francophones.

there is a new american brel review, now performing in chicago, at the suitably named 'no exit' cafe. it's called 'lonsome losers of the night,' and includes a couple of songs from the original review but mostly others. the translator is arnold johnson, a professor from michigan, whom brel's widow has anointed as the his best in english. i've read mixed reviews.

after having been on this blog for awhile, i look back at my first experience of brel and understand my reaction to him a bit better. i recall his angst as positively palpable, approaching 'over the top' before OTT was a popular description. it fit my own mid-20s angst perfectly.

[Dodo]

Yes, he had a Belgian accent. Not a strong one. I am ready to be corrected by any native speakers here. CB]

No Charles, sorry, but he had no.

He once used the belgian accent while singing "les Bonbons" at french TV - the well know ' A oui-t-heure, moi je vous ramènerai ' - , the song DOT KING talk about. Since the character he represent in the song is very stupid and coward (si vous voulez que je cede la place....) the Belgian were very upset.
In the bonbon 2 he said "J'ai perdu l'accent bruxellois, d'ailleurs plus personne n'a cet accent là, sauf Brel, à la Télévision..."
He was not an easy guy

[Peter Athey]

Native French speakers revere the 3 'B's': Brel, Barbara and Brassens. I never really got into Barbara and Brassens (I prefer his Anglo-saxon alter-ego, Jake Thackeray) but immediately felt an affinity with Brel.

The first time I really listened to Brel's lyrics - in the 1970's - I got the exact same thump-in-the-gut reaction as when I first came across Jacques Prévert's poetry: stunned emotional admiration while being moved to tears by the beauty of both lyrics and music. As a non-native French speaker, I found them both approachable and not too difficult to grasp their underlying meaning. Neither used words as so many poets do - juxtaposed vocabulary with nice phonemic sounds but whose whole is so often complete gibberish. Brel and Prévert instinctively injected real, down-to-earth sense into everything they wrote and performed.

For your UK journalist colleagues, the only equivalence I can think of in English, in terms of emotional shock, is when I first read the 'Liverpool Scene' poets in the 1960's - Adrian Henry, Roger McGough and Brian Patten. Here were poets I could identify with; not Bloomsbury-set effetes, but gritty, bare-knuckle writers. I must have bought more than a dozen copies of their collection of poems - either to give away as gifts to people I thought might be equally entranced, or just to keep in different rooms. Likewise, I have most of Brel's songs on CD (as well as older pressings on 45 and 33 rpm) and always want the genuine article and not some 'light' copy.

[Francois D]

Charles, thank you very much for this post writen by a connoisseur of Jacques Brel. I suppose that years in Brussels helped you to love this great belgium singer.

I was traveling tonight ..through Belgium, but listening to the special broadcast on France Inter about Brel (all radios have spoken about him to day).
A Brel specialist interviewed, also insisted that "the flat country" was a song about Flanders. His father was Flemish (and his mother Brucellian, I think). The Flemish version is very nice because the Flemish language is rougher than the French (I know, for an English, that may shock..). You were right to make the link with the Flemish version.
He has an accent (I conceed that he seems to have lost it at the end of his live), but he plays with this accent when he wants to emphasize fun about his fellow citizens, as you say, even if he loved very much his country and its peculiarities. Perhaps, it is popular brucellian accent. For me, Brussels emphasis is a little slower and distinguished, less rough. This is not the Walloon accent. I should say that he had a very slight Flemish accent. This is its charm. Opportunity to ask to our Belgian friends to keep their accent. It is ridiculous for a Belgian to apologize for naturally saying "Septante" (or nonante) ie 70 or 90, because they speak to a French, stop and say "sorry, I meant" Sixty ten "(or ninety-ten").
For recognizing a Belgian or Swiss without accent, the best way is to arrive in the course of the conversation,to hear "septante or nonante". That is directly issued from latin, but french losted that words during the XV eme century.

http://www.langue-fr.net/index/S/septante.htm

Listen to the "flamandes" song: he says "septante"; so one may affirm that he speaks belgium (with a strong accent in this song)

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/brel%2Bflamands/video/x1c5ut_jacques-brel-les-flamandes-1962-eng_music

This song is shocking, given origins. In fact, he has always behaved like a great child rebelled against his roots, without hate but mocking for change, as he said.
The same goes for Roman Catholic culture, with the song "the Bigotte."

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/brel%2Bbigots/video/x1kjgi_jacques-brel-les-bigotes-english-su_fun

[Judith]

A delightful interlude of nostalgia. Thank you everyone.
It is so soothing when all the financial news is so bad and all our bourses are manic.

[valerie]

Brel is best when you can see the actual performance! What energy. They don't make many performers like that anymore.

As for the McKuen version of ''Ne me quitte pas'' (If you go away), it pales GREATLY when compared to the French lyrics, I'm afraid.

It's odd that so many bourgeois Belgians were infused with a sincere dislike for their country/culture/upbringing... I can't believe it's all down to Catholicism. Rather facile an excuse, isn't it. I think it has more to do with ''Belgians'' not really feeling, well, Belgian, but more Flemish or Walloon... And not having a language called Belgian, etc. It's about identity.

[dot king]

DODO: Interesting that there should have been protests over an accent in "Les Bonbons" when you consider the lyrics themselves of "Les Flamandes".
I don't think that the protagonist in "Les Bonbons" is a coward, he is just a rather pompous fellow who is used, by the daughter of a strict mother who simply wants to meet her preferred Léon - everyone knows but him, "le monde est plein de Polisson" but still he doesn't lose his pride "de vous voir pendue à mon bras" (I love the "pendue").
He isn't stupid either, as he never actually hands over his bonbons, but seems to be waiting, tempting her with them, trading them off against something à venir, or espéré - and he still has them when he comes across Mademoiselle Germainé, whom we have already learned is not a "good girl" - he sings with some relish that Germaine " est moins bien que vous", that she has "les cheveux roux" and is "cruelle" and he confirms with a certain wistfulness "vous avez mille fois raison".
One could even argue that the "stupid coward" comes off better than he might have expected on his Sunday afternoon promenade. :)

DAVID ATHEY: Prévert is my favourite French poet too and I share your enthusiasm for the "Beat Poets" I have (amongst others) 3 volumes signed by Brian Patten, and my favourite poem 'A Small green Dragon" with a special "for Dot" on the page. I was really thrilled at the time because later that evening he read it as one of his love poems - well, a girl can dream, can't she? ;D
(Up until then,, I hadn't really known what the poem was about, but loved the imagery and the mystery - the following day it became a lesson in interpretation and search for meaning.)
Prévert is excellent also for teaching French, a great user of the passé composé, and a flow of wonderful ideas and images expressed in accessible language. Just as the Beat Poets were great for transmitting a taste for poetry to kids who thought it had nothing to do with them.

[Rick]

Thank you for writing about Brel, CHARLES. Somebody else beat you of course: and who other than Alastair ‘the enforcer’ Campbell, of all people! He wrote and fronted a half-hour Radio 4 programme on Brel, a few weeks ago. The young Alastair had been hitching around Europe at the time of Brel’s death, and seems to have been influenced by the emotional reaction by the various drivers, across all class divides.

At the risk of upsetting two such eminences as yourself and Mr Campbell, could I suggest you reconsider your, already hedged, judgement that Jacques ‘is probably the most widely revered French-language singer-poet of modern times’?

I’m uncertain about your term ‘revere’ in Brel’s case. His songs show men as the pathetic playthings of ‘inconstant, flighty, cruel’ women. A close reading of the text to ‘Ne me quitte pas’ reveals an abject, sick supplicant. So many of the ‘characters’ he evokes are anything but life-enhancing. His sympathy extends to the lowest of the low only, like ‘Jef’. Brel’s attitude towards Belgians is often just as caustic.

Of course text, music, arrangement, ‘interprétation’ are absolutely first-class. But compare how much more ‘contestataire’ (let’s say ‘oppositional’, anti-bourgeois) is the work of Georges Brassens. Yet how much healthier and sunnier in outlook is the Frenchman. Brassens manages on his own, with an accompanist on double-bass at most. Brassens is funnier, wittier, yet more affecting. He’s more difficult too, sometimes.

Poor Gordon Brown is charged with being ‘clunking’ and that’s the kind of adjective we have to attach to Brel – ‘un je ne sais quoi d’élément belge’. For that reason, CHARLES, I wonder how many French people would share your opinion.

Trénet, perhaps; Barbara, perhaps; Brassens, probably; which is not to say that Brel wouldn’t be my second choice.

[Pierre B]

I share Charles' opinion. My favourites being the 70s: Les Marquises and La ville s'endormait. Clunking? Sublime.

But how about a word on Le Clézio?

[Just done Clézio, Pierre, though have to confess that I had not read his novels, only the odd article. CB]

[PAUL 1st]

Don't forget Léo Ferré, well worth a place alongside Brel and Brassens. He was the most iconoclastic and 'shocking' of the three and the one who had the most thorough musical training.
For more see http://www.leo-ferre.com/accueil/accueil.html

[Emilie]

@ Rick.
As a French young woman, i completely agree with Charles when writing Jacques Brel ‘is probably the most widely revered French-language singer-poet of modern times’. I love Brassens'songs too. Indeed his lyrics were a little bit more complexed sometimes than those of the great Jacques (except for 'Fernande'), but between both of them, Brel is the only one that makes me shiver that way when listening for exemple to 'le port d'Amsterdam' or 'Ne me quittes pas'. I totally disagree with you when you say this last song 'reveals an abject, sick supplicant'. For me, that's the most beautiful love song ever written. A little piece of musical perfection, the stunning poetry of the lyrics and above all Brel's interpretation. By the way Brassens and Brel were very good friends.
As for Trénet and Barbara, I'm afraid younger generations don't know much any more about 'le Fou Chantant' and Barbara's audience was not as large as the previous mentionned singers'ones.
Piaf is still popular among all generations, thanks, for the younger, to Dahan's movie.
Let's not forget the great Aznavour and its amazing lyrics and musics.
Thank you Charles, remembering what good things french culture can provide sometimes is very refreshing considering the depressing economical news.

[dot king]

"‘is probably the most widely revered French-language singer-poet of modern times’?

I’m uncertain about your term ‘revere’ in Brel’s case."

RICK

But it isn't Brel who's considered to be doing the reverence - it's the French who revere him.

"pathetic playthings of ‘inconstant, flighty, cruel’ women. A close reading of the text to ‘Ne me quitte pas’ reveals an abject, sick supplicant."

also RICK

A woman can sing "Ne me quitte pas" and sound just the same. I think Brel wrote songs that anyone who'd ever given anything a moment's thought could relate to, and that's what made him - and his songs - so popular. Plus his performances and charisma (I found him disappointing in interviews - plutôt con quoi).

There's the introspection of (justement) "Ne me quitte pas" - who hasn't gone through such a passage in their life? Then there was the nostalgia of "Les vieux amants"; the future (inévitable) for us all in "Les vieux"; admiration tempered with hard truth in "Amsterdam"; and as for "Le plat pays" - well can't we all see what's right and also what's wrong with places we love?

It's his human qualities that come through his songs, be those introspective, rebellious, caustic, fatalistic, they are always perceptive of certain realities that most recognise even if they wouldn't admit it.

I think you are wrong about how the French see Brel, never moreso. They love him still and France is where he found success - the same status as (say) Coluche.

PS Just to illustrate that I take your point - Ayo - beautiful girl, lovely voice, music slightly jazzy/folksy - but her first hit (here in France at least) went "down on my knees, I'm begging you . . . please don't leave me".
I hate it that young women still sing such things - Men too - "if you leave me now, you'll take away the biggest part of me . . . baby please don't go"
It's just a recurring human theme, why not?

[John Lloyd]

As an anglophone who has lived in France for a long time I have never really been able to get into la chanson française. Brel is the big exception and he has something undefinable that the others don't have and the genre doesn't have. We would call it soul I suppose. Or maybe it's because he was Belgian!

You are right that Brel has not been well served by English language versuions of his work but there is one fantastic Enhlish interpretaion of a Brel song out there. About 30 years ago David Bowie recorded a version of the Port of Amsterdam, as the B-side of Sorrow, I think. Check it out. It does justice both to the song and to Brel. If my memory serves me right the translation was by Rod McKuan and it works very well.

[Dean]

Thank you for reminding me, amidst the financial turmoil, that this is the 30th anniversary of Brel's death. I still remember exactly where I was when I first heard his unforgettable voice, during a Radio 4 tribute on the day he died. I was transfixed then, and the passage of time has done nothing to diminish my love of his work. One of the greatest songwriters, and singers, of the 20th century. We shall not see his like again!

[Brett]

Hmm? Jacques Brel, Antoine de Saint-Exupery-interesting to note a link between aviation and writing / the arts.

Charles, being an aviator and celebrated writer yourself, can you offer other examples? (And thanks for the great post.)

[I like the 'celebrated writer'. But as a humble scribbler who flies, yes there has long been a link between aviators and the artistic spirit. Charles Lindbergh, one of the greatest, said flying was a pure mixture of science and poetry. Most pros -- airline and military pilots -- are romantics, even if they won't admit it. In world war two many fighter pilots -- Brits, Germans, Americans, Poles, Russians -- were spare-time musicians. Saint Ex is the only full-time pilot who is also a first rank author in his own right but there is a vast library of flying literature. Try Ernest K Gann's Fate is the Hunter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_K._Gann CB]

[Dodo]

DOT
The Bruxellois and Walloons were never offended by the "Flamandes", for obvious reasons. However they were not very satisfied with the bonbons.
I agree with you and sorry for my bad choice of the English words - understand that as French I often don’t know "the weight of the words".
His relation with Belgium was of love and hatred but he never disavowed his Belgitude (No, it is not a Segolaine’s expression. It is Brel himself which used the word). He liked France but never accepted French nationality.

I am unable to say if I prefer Brel or Brassens. For me they are on the same level. Brel was exceptional by the power of his emotions, Brassens by the accuracy and the precision of his texts. I often say that Brel is the greatest francophone author while Brassens is the greatest French author.

[azloon]

'Jonathon Livingston Seagull?'

by the eminently forgettable american pilot richard bach, proof that not all pilot/authors are truly dual-talented.

[Bach is not so bad when he's writing adult books -- he has written a lot about flying. A bit sentimental but he's lyrical and knows what he's talking about. CB]

[azloon]

i never got beyond his signature work (or through it).

as i recall, it came out about the same time as eric segal's 'love story,' and i always associate it with that period of sappy american writing (tho i confess i liked 'love story').

[Rick]

‘Je me cacherai là
A te regarder
Danser et sourire
Et à t'écouter
Chanter et puis rire
Laisse-moi devenir
L'ombre de ton ombre
L'ombre de ta main
L'ombre de ton chien’

DOT, this is the final strophe of ‘Ne Me Quitte Pas’ This is not anodyne stuff. I repeat that there’s something odd and unhealthy about this. Either that or Jacques was over-generous with the purple ink. This is where the ‘clunking’, the ‘trying too hard’, the over-emphasis comes in. I quite like a bit of bombast, myself.

Nevertheless, this side of Brel disqualifies him from the top spot.
Besides, it’s so un-French!

[dot king]

RICK - you're too picky!

Whereas other singer-songwriters just say "baby I can't live without you", Brel injects real poetry into his expression of the same emotion.

As I said before, there can't be many who haven't felt like pleading in this way at some point in their life, even if we rule out the fact of doing it. It puts into words a feeling at a point in time, an emotion too strong that we can (except you of course:)) all relate to.

I quite agree with you that the pleading is OTT, but the poetry is wonderful.

Compare Prévert's "Déjeuner du matin" for an opposite approach, watching someone's every movement, in minute detail, waiting to be noticed, trying to put off le moment fatidique where the loved one goes, without a look, without a word:
"Et moi
j'ai pris ma tête dans mes mains
et j'ai pleuré"

When one person no longer wants to be in a couple, then that couple is over - the other can only watch or plead (If we rule out murder of course ;)).

Brel expresses the pleading, Prévert the resignation.
It's all purely and simply poetry:

Je vous porterai
des perles de pluie
venues de pays
où il ne pleut pas

I think in real life, he got over it, several times!

[Wiersing Sudau, Michael]

I am sorry to say this, especially as I am a great fan of Jacques Brel ever since I heard him for the first time - when he was already dead - and to whom, i.e. his lyrics, his passion, etc. I feel very close indeed. My impression is, that for many years Brel has stopped to be the "most widely revered French-language singer-poet of modern times", even if this would do him right. My impression is that especially Edith Piaf has become much more popular over recent years, not least because of a successful theatre-play and movie. Brel had rather bad luck with his biography providing material for an mass-appealing film, his life seems to be rather suitable for documentaries, not more. And the musical based on his songs was never really a big thing. His approach was obviously more intellectual than that of Piaf, and his performance much more elaborate than of any other French singing performer ever, but apparently for exactly these reasons he does not get the attention anymore he deserves. He is considered rather difficult and demanding, so the broad public rather shields from him. Outside Western Europe, it would rather be Piaf, who is known - the theatre play based on her biography is for example being played in Russia and other former SU states - whereas for example in Eastern Europe Brel is hardly known at all (as are nearly all contemporary French singing performers, with the exception of Patricia Kaas, Mireille Mathieu and maybe Vanessa Paradis. But there is not a single French singing rock-pop star who has become really a world-celebrity).
At least Belgium has done justice to him, calling an underground station in Brussels after him - an honour rarely given to someone so close in time to us.

Michael Wiersing Sudau from Chisinau, Moldova

[Arnold Ward]

At the time I considered his singing lacked melody, and as someone who at the very least understands Dutch, I found his Dutch songs excruciating. Jacques Brel is for people with little ear for melodic music.

[kevin Kursan]

Brel is the greatest. He is the perfect combination of divine literature, electrifing performance and master minded musicology. And his life is just an incredible movie ending in the Marquises..
It can't get any better than that.
A friend of mine translated a radio interview he gave to France Inter. Each words he pronounced were building up towards a philosophical life journey but yet "terre a terre". Lifting and mesmorsing.
Comparing him with the Beatles is insulting really, even to us. Sinatra was not a composer nor a musician, and our greatest poets were not musicians. I am just surprised that he has not yet been ranked at the top spot internationally like Soljenitsine for instance. I admire him and i hate the french even more for that.

[dot king]

"Outside Western Europe, it would rather be Piaf, who is known -

in Eastern Europe Brel is hardly known at all"

WIERSING SUDAU, MICHAEL

Yes, but IN FRANCE it's different.
Brel was unique. He wasn't a "world commodity" and i doubt he was bothered - he sought anonymity in les Marquises (the islands not the song).

"Comparing him with the Beatles is insulting really,"
KEVIN KURSAN

"For people who lived those years, his anthems -- Madeleine, Les Bourgeois, Le Plat Pays, La Valse à Quatre Temps, Le Port d'Amsterdam -- are as much part of the soul as Beatles tunes are for English-speakers of that generation." (CB article)

Charles DOESN'T compare Brel with the Beatles, he says that for the French, Brel's music is as much a part of the musical landscape as were the Beatles in the UK.

"I admire him and i hate the french even more for that."

also KEVIN KURSAN

If you hate the French and can hardly even read English with a modicum of understanding, then what the Hell are you doing on this blog?

[dot king]

"Jacques Brel is for people with little ear for melodic music."

Posted by: Arnold Ward | 12 Oct 2008 00:33:26

Ye gods and little fishes! Another one!
Is there a musical equivalent of The Drudge, or what?

Oh, brother! ;D

[Perhaps you heard Benabar talking to Dominique Souchier on Europe1 this morning about his latest album. Among other things, he said about three times how insignificant he believes he is alongside le Grand Jacques. CB]

[Rick]

DOT, of course I’m being ‘picky’ we’re choosing the all time best here! I concede - nay, insist! - that Jacques should come second. There’s no comparison. It’s a one-horse race.

I also am an absolute ‘sucker’ for the pearl-tear imagery. But it auto-destructs: ‘I will bear you raindrop pearls from countries where is doesn’t rain’. The Irish have a word for this kind of thing – blarney.

I don’t go all the way with Goethe: ‘"Klassisch ist, was gesund ist, romantisch, was krank ist" (Classical is what is healthy; romantic what is not well); but the German’s observation can certainly be applied to Brel. You mention Prévert’s ‘Déjeuner du matin’, and very aptly too. What makes this poem so poignant is the powerlessness of the (lady?) observer. But it’s poignant because she says not a word, not a syllable about her own feelings – unlike Brel!

For me, many of Brel’s songs are vivid cameos or caricatures. The ‘chanteur-auteur-interprète’ does even more: he supervised the musical arrangement; he self-directed his stage performance so minutely one suspected each bead of sweat was forethought. And via a musical ‘tranche de vie’ he gave birth to a highly wrought, memorable ‘type’ in each instance. Each from a Breugel genre painting. I’m unsure that he ever sang as ‘Brel’. He assumed various ‘persona’, didn’t he?

This alone accounts for what, cool-headedly, we’re forced to admit is the utter ‘sans vergogne’ of ‘l’homme qui rampe’ in ‘Ne me quitte pas’. This is no man; no woman either, I venture to suggest. It’s a stereotype, without individual feature: ‘the jilt-ee’. This unhappy, unhealthy chap would like nothing better than have his lady-love grind her high heel into one of the softer parts of his anatomy.

This comment may strike you as unkind. Please don’t blame me. We each have a personal, even intimate, ‘take’ on key songs, but the subject is the selection of the finest... which word should remind us that Brassens’ mastery of the language was far greater; his reliance on ‘backing’ of all kinds far less; his output greater and of superior in quality.

Ah, but what about the music? Precisely! Brassens’ musicality is always under-rated. Decades later though, a tune, a distinctive rhythm, transport us instantly back. There’s some truth in saying that, compared to Brassens, Brel offers ‘gueulade’ set to ‘oom-pa’ music.

Which is not to say we shouldn’t indulge from time to time... (I've has the Warsaw ladied promenading my mental ramparts all night!)

[dot king]

"Perhaps you heard Benabar talking to Dominique Souchier"
CHARLES B

No, I didn't hear that - I rarely change radio stations (for which read "never" :)) but I do like Benabar, more and more as I see/hear him interviewed by someone who knows how to go about it (ie not Ruquier for eg).

He was one of the main guests on the first "Tandem" the new Fr2 Christophe Hondelatte programme, to be occasionally a prime time Friday evening programme.
Benabar is very intelligent and accomplished musician, with wide musical horizons. And despite this, he's right to be modest if compared with Brel, whose talent was unique.

PS a CONFESSION for DANIEL: (enjoy)
Feeling a bit "blobby" on Friday night, I could come up with nothing better to do iwth my time than to watch "Star Ac" (aaarrggh!), but I managed to miss what was probably the best bit (walking the dog).
When at the end Nikos Aliagos was announcing "le classement des élèves" he said "et nous avons des nouvelles de Yaelle, elle va bien, elle n'a que quelques bleus, TF1 lui présente toutes ses excuses . . ."
Consumed by morbid curiosity, I went searching - here is the very best moment of last Friday's "Star Ac":

http://www.tuxboard.com/?video-yael-naim-chute-prime-star-academy

[PAUL 1st]

DOT,

Du CALME!! Not everyone shares your or my tastes. So what? Arnold Ward has as much right to express his views as you or I.

[dot king]

(I've has the Warsaw ladied promenading my mental ramparts all night!)

RICK

Wha . . .?

[dot king]

Dear Paul 1st,
What Arnold Ward expresses isn't a mere view, it's a statement of (his) truth.
Let's take a closer look -

"Jacques Brel is for people with little ear for melodic music."

I and several million others, including you, love my Jacques Brel (I suspect Arnold Ward has little more than a passing acquaintance with Brel's songs and music), but this does not exclude me and the other millions from liking other music, and "melodic music" at that.

Mr Ward doesn't make it clear what he means by "melodic music", but one grasps the disapproval for anyone who appreciates Brel, and the insinuation that his knowledge of "melodic music " whatever that is by his undisclosed definition, is superior to everyone else's and that anyone who likes Brel has an inferior ear for music.

If you (meaning "one") have (has) a case to argue, then argue, but don't make bald statements with no definition of what you mean. Unless of coure you want to be taken to task . . . :)

[PAUL 1st]

An interesting point: what is 'melodic' music and does music have to be melodic? If you are used to Schoenberg you don't notice the dissonances any more. I love Hungarian folk music but my few 'mélomane' friends find it grating and discordant. Acquired taste, I suppose and acquiring taste may require a certain effort.

[dot king]

"This is no man; no woman either, I venture to suggest. It’s a stereotype, without individual feature: ‘the jilt-ee’. This unhappy, unhealthy chap would like nothing better than have his lady-love grind her high heel into one of the softer parts of his anatomy."

RICK

Now, now, you can't have it both ways - it can't be "no man; no woman . . . a stereotype" then become an "unhealthy chap" with a "lady-love".
Sloppy that, surprised at you, Rick . . . ;)

And as for your translation of the lines, well hmmm, if I were asked to do it, I'd do it as follows, simply:

I'll bring you raindrops
from countries where it doesn't rain

But then I'll say, what point in translating it and reducing it to words that are less poetic in English, when we both understand them in French??
Hmm? Hein??

And as for interpretation, if we look at it a moment as poem/song:

"Les perles" in French are beads and can be drops as well as pearls; pearls are the jewel associated with tears.
So what if he's saying (OK I know you won't like it any better for this) "I know I've been unfeeling and never shown my love for you, but now you're leaving me, it's too late, I'd do anything, now you'll see me cry".
How about "le pays où il ne pleut pas" being himself and "les perles de pluie" being tears?
A poetic metaphor? No, take that without the question mark - it's a poetic metaphor if there ever was one.

Perhaps Brel's popularity with women is simply that: a man not afraid to put his feelings into words even when it brings him low; and with men (some): expressing something they feel unable to express themselves - justement because they are men.

On the other hand, he could be just another sweet-talker trying to get his own way ;D

There, you have multiple analyses, from one helluva complicated woman!
Quite simple really.

[dot king]

Paul 1st - gottit! Precisely that.
And I quite agree about acquired tastes requiring some effort, but there are some things I can't take to at all - oh horror! - I cannot listen to church organ music - if I have to for any length of time it actually jangles me up inside and gives me a headache, and once, trapped in an organ recital (my very first) I ended up feeling actually sick.
I do not however say that organ music is only for those who have strong stomachs.
If I try to analyse my reactions then I conclude that the notes in organ music all run into each other and I hear only cacophony and want to escape.
But does my isolated reaction diminsh great organ works composed by the likes of Bach? Not at all. Does the fact of my not liking it reduce everyone who does?
Nope.
That's why I argued with Arnold Ward.

[Rick]

DOT, I propose to deal with your points in anti-chronological order.

Brel’s ‘oeuvre’ provides excellent material for the aspirant and very amateur ‘Karaok-er’. I’ve satisfied myself on this. You write, ‘a man not afraid to put his feelings into words even when it brings him low’ – ‘his’ feelings. Are you seriously telling me that Brel is emotionally eloquent?

EMILIE’s comment is revealing in this connection: ‘but between both of them, Brel is the only one that makes me shiver that way when listening for example to 'le port d'Amsterdam' or 'Ne me quittes (sic!) pas'. ‘Nuance!’ as the casuist would have it: ‘emotion’ and ‘emotionalism’ are not identical.
There is near-zero analysis of feelings here. These are emotional daubings. Subtle we ain’t. ‘Amsterdam’ is as liquid a ‘douche’ as one could hope for: ‘port’, ‘berges mornes’, ‘pleins de bière et de drames’, ‘langueurs océanes’, ‘poissons ruisselants’, ‘qui boivent et reboivent’, ‘ils pissent comme je pleure’. This is ‘Club Med’ Dutch. Breugel-sur-Mer.

You write, ‘How about "le pays où il ne pleut pas" being himself and "les perles de pluie" being tears?’ A mite fanciful, I think. (‘Raindrops keep falling on my head’?) As is, ‘I'll bring you raindrops from countries where it doesn't rain’. How much more intense is it going to get. This is only the second stanza. On the tip of my tongue is the phrase ‘prematute ejeculation’.

I’ll readily admit to ‘sloppy’ but don’t think that’s fair comment here. ‘[A] stereotype, without individual feature’ may nominally (that word again!) have gender-denoting dangly bits without in any way becoming an individual, don’t you think? Don’t tell me you missed the sarcasm of ‘lady love’. Obsessive behaviour is un-individuated. Therefore, no self-contradiction.

Rather than ‘revere’ I’d prefer ‘adore’ or ‘love’. Certainly the French seem to... Might I suggest that their attachment is, strangely, to Brel’s non-French, emotionalising side? In opting for Brel as the big ‘numero uno’ isn’t one devaluing such traditional values as: taste, restraint, style, elegance? (I’ll never forget that French lady who remarked upon venturing into a Channel ferry dining-room, ‘Ah, quelle finesse, les Anglais!’)

How about Brel as ‘le chantre de la reconciliation franco-allemande’? Two songs at least are near-flawless, ‘les Vieux’ and ‘le Plat Pays’; this, despite (typically) stretching their effects to breaking point. In the latter, we hear: ‘Avec Frida la blonde quand elle devient Margot’. Doesn’t that encompass the singer of ‘Mijn Vlakke Land’?

[dot king]

"On the tip of my tongue is the phrase ‘prematute ejeculation’."

RICK Well, that's no place for it!!

;D

[dot king]

RICK - I'll take all your points, but I don't agree with you on any of them! :)

You don't rate Brel as many others do and you have your reasons for this, you analyse him differently from myself, we'll just have to differ, I think. Further analysis would rob Brel's work of everything people like it for.

[Rick]

DOT, you sent me scurrying off to hear Alain Souchon and what did I find? Why, a catchy little number entitled ‘Sous les jupes des filles’ complete with a pretty video.

[dot king]

RICK - you don't have to thank me - no really . . .

It wasn't intentional - as seen in a previous comment, we shouldn't get you over-excited :)

[Rick]

PAX, DOT. But Georges has been very quiet and deserves an airing, I think you’ll agree.

‘A toute exhibition, ma nature est rétive,
Souffrant d'un' modesti' quasiment maladive,
Je ne fais voir mes organes procréateurs
A personne, excepté mes femm's et mes docteurs.
Dois-je, pour défrayer la chroniqu' des scandales,
Battre l' tambour avec mes parti's génitales,
Dois-je les arborer plus ostensiblement,
Comme un enfant de chœur porte un saint sacrement?’

Or:

‘J'ai l'honneur de
Ne pas te de-
mander ta main
Ne gravons pas
Nos noms au bas
D'un parchemin’

[dot king]

RICK - yes, fine, pax indeed, never anything else, but the article was, après tout, about Brel.

I recognise Brassens' huge talent, but I (MOI JE) prefer Brel.

:) (a paxful smiley)

[Antoine Delord]

Not that I want to reignite the dispute between Rick and Dot King, but I'll have to agree with the former: Brassens is simply the best! (to quote another singing legend who bears scant resemblance to the two aforementioned poets...).
Like Rick, I tend to dislike Le Belge for his over-sentimentality, and more generally for his fundamental 'over-the-topness'. Mais tous les goûts sont dans la nature of course...

May I take this opportunity to add that my personal singers' pantheon also includes Claude Nougaro. 'Toulouse', 'Dansez sur moi', 'Brésilien' are absolute gems! Go and check...

[dot king]

"Not that I want to reignite the dispute between Rick and Dot King,"

Antoine Delord

Not a dispute, a discussion - and a good-natured one at that - I agree about Nougaro, but doubt anyone outside of francophone countries will have heard of him - sadly. :)

[Antoine Delord]

This is why I decided to mention him on this website!
Here are the lyrics of Dansez sur moi:
http://www.paroles.net/chanson/13577.1
(and the melody is beautiful too...).

[dot king]

Antoine - Anglophones know "Dansez sur moi as "Girl talk"

I couldn't find a decent youtube video of Nougaro singing it, but here's "Tu verras tu verras" which is also known to Anglophones under another title - which escapes me for the moment (a teeny - very teeny - senior moment) :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5PLtaQCRCA

[Rick]

ANTOINE, what makes Nougaro so much better than, say, Jean Ferrat? Is it (partly) his accompanist?

[Wiersing Sudau, Michael]

I am sorry to say this, especially as I am a great fan of Jacques Brel ever since I heard him for the first time - when he was already dead - and to whom, i.e. his lyrics, his passion, etc. I feel very close indeed. My impression is, that for many years Brel has stopped to be the "most widely revered French-language singer-poet of modern times", even if this would do him right. My impression is that especially Edith Piaf has become much more popular over recent years, not least because of a successful theatre-play and movie. Brel had rather bad luck with his biography providing material for an mass-appealing film, his life seems to be rather suitable for documentaries, not more. And the musical based on his songs was never really a big thing. His approach was obviously more intellectual than that of Piaf, and his performance much more elaborate than of any other French singing performer ever, but apparently for exactly these reasons he does not get the attention anymore he deserves. He is considered rather difficult and intellectually demanding, so the broad public rather shields from him. Outside Western Europe, it would rather be Piaf, who is known - the theatre play based on her biography is for example being played in Russia and other former SU states - whereas generally in Eastern Europe Brel is hardly known at all (as are nearly all contemporary French singing performers, with the exception of Patricia Kaas, Mireille Mathieu and maybe Vanessa Paradis. But there is not a single French singing rock-pop star who has become really a world-celebrity). Also Joe Dassin is, due to some nice little tunes, today much more known world-wide than Brel.
At least Belgium has done justice to him, calling an underground station in Brussels after him - an honour rarely given to someone so close in time to us.

Michael Wiersing Sudau from Chisinau, Moldova