It was Jacques Brel's 90th birthday in April.
I once had a most untypical loss of temper when giving a talk to a class in Liverpool. Some herbert started treating us to the “name five famous Belgians” routine, to much predictable hilarity all round. I love a question that panders to the smug self-satisfied ignorance of the ill-educated crude oafs of the world (not!).
I bellowed, pretty emphatically, with finger pointing very stiffly, and teeth gritted at appropriate points, that Belgium produced the one Jacques Brel, which is more than the rest of the world put together. With its hat on! (I wait for Belgian friends to mention "Les Flamandes," the ones I have met don't hold it against him. One anyway).
I got a few cheers and some banging of desks in appreciation. I think they were probably more impressed with my raised voice, fierce tone, flushed face, fiery eyes, and banged fist. I am a formidable rager.
And I'm sure Brel would have been amused by the extreme passion over something so trivial. I remember his daughter telling a story of when they went sailing in rocky waters. The flag off the boat was lost in the water. It's just a flag, she told her dad. But, no, Jacques had to strip off and dive into the water to rescue it. He then promptly stuck it back up. As if it mattered. It did. I'm the same way with caps and scarves and everything. There was not enough happening that day, his daughter said in the interview.
He liked things lively, did Jacques. He left the family's cardboard factory at an early age, went to Paris to become a singer-songwriter. And he abandoned his career at the height of his success, saying he didn't want to become an industrialist of song.
He was an understanding soul, was Jacques. He had his own little foibles. He doesn't seem to have rated what he did too highly. He disliked pretension. He said he wrote songs, and denied that he wrote poetry. I say he was a poet of life – all of it.
This next video of the same performance has poor sound, but is worth watching to read the lyrics translated into English. We all know the people that Brel is singing of. I just love the ending, the resignation, the reconciliation, the confession that we are, in the end, no better than the people we pretend to despise. Brel knew the compromises of life, the reconciled nature of folk in community with different others, the fate, and survival, of hope. He knew the dreams, the illusions, the fear. “Because with those people there, mister, you don't go away.” Just ponder these lyrics. At the bottom I post interviews with Brel on dreams, fear and stupidity. We all have dreams, we all need to fear, and stupidity is just laziness.
It's an amazing performance. If you are tough enough to go further into the world of Brel, then try this one. Of course!
I like this article from Alison Moyet (love her voice too). "France, Brel et moi" "Heated and shameless - the songs of her childhood holidays made Alison Moyet the singer she is today."
Moyet writes of the honesty in the dark pictures of Brel's songs. Her words are so good that I have to quote them in full:
"A favourite was Brel's bilious Vesoul. It is a song that pulls you breathlessly along - the tale of a man finally turning on his lover, who has dragged him mercilessly to her beat - and is delivered in a torrent of syllables at a pace that beggars belief. As a child, I was unable to decipher the words, which flew by like peppered missiles. But it was the atmosphere Brel brought with him that drew me up short. This was a man whose songs had the dark stern men that were my kin mouthing his poetry with abandonment, their throats gluey with empathy. These hard men, with bare chests and livid scars, rarely offered up a gentle word, but Brel transformed them; made them laugh in recognition.
Brel's were not songs of make-believe. He levelled us with our own shared human condition: his Madeleine would never arrive, the clock would cease to tick for Les Vieux, and alcoholics like the tragic Jeff don't always sing a merry song home."
Brel denied that he wrote poetry. I say he did. I'm not sure his songs can save us. But there's solace in knowing that he knows what makes us human. For good and for ill.
I have this next one on the DVD, Comme Quand Etait Beau. It is a marvelous experience seeing Brel showing how he put his songs and music together.
He does it on the same DVD with “Quand Maman Reviendra.”
I first heard this next one, "Fils De," performed as "Sons Of" by the great Liverpool singer Thomas Lang. (Thomas is a wonderful artist, please check his work out). I then found Scott Walker, who was big on Brel. There was always French music in the house when young (Piaf, Aznavour, Becaud and such like) but I knew Brel by his great reputation rather than his actual songs, as done by his incomparable self. I heard the words "written by Jacques Brel" a lot, but, with a few exceptions, the English language versions of his songs didn't impress at all (Seasons in the Sun, for crying out loud, it takes some genius to take Brel and turn him into bubble gum! Please go direct to Le Moribond for something very different. Terry Jacks is an obvious and easy target, but I feel exactly the same when suffering David Bowie's highly acclaimed version of Amsterdam. I find Bowie's performance weak. It's men against boys, and weedy, whiny boys at that. Even where the performances are better, I see no comparison with Brel. Brel's Ne Me Quitte Pas is in a different world to If You Go Away, and I don't care how great the singers are who have done Brel - Jack Jones, Sinatra, Springfield, and even Nina Simone and Scott Walker, who both do much, much better - it's not Brel, not even close (the latter are closer).
But I was, and remain, a big fan of the singer Thomas Lang, and it was when I saw him perform Sons Of that I simply had to investigate the origins of this most moving of songs. This was when I discovered Jacques Brel in the raw, and I was bowled over in an instant.
Oh I could go on forever and ever on Brel - “Amsterdam,” “Jacy,” “Le Dernier Repas,” “Le Plat Pays,” “Jef,” “Les Bergers,” “Le Moribond,” “J'Arrive,” “Voir un Ami Pleurer,” the incredibly moving (incredible even by Brel's own standards, which is profoundly, heart-rendingly moving by any definition) “Chanson des Vieux Amants.”
I've gone for live performances here, because people should have Brel as a full-on experience. Brel is so expressive. He is an incredibly captivating and charismatic performer, and this is evident even in the grainy black and white images of the You Tube videos. Imagine seeing this guy live in the theatre! His studio recordings are remarkable, too, boasting beautiful arrangements and orchestration. I pour over the Brel songs as if they were precious gems, savoring every word, every emotion. He covers it all. He is incomparable.
I'll just finish on this one, which is just so incredibly moving, so touching in its profound, imperfect, true humanity.
And ... you just knew I wasn't going to end.
This one is indispensable.
Just, a quiet 'yes' to this, an almost imperceptible nod in the silence. They walk away in silence - if you don't understand the French, try to find a good English translation of the lyrics to this one. (Or try Nina Simone's version, The Desperate Ones.
And .. there's no end to Brel. How well do you know Brel? If you don't know him, then take the plunge: you will find that he knows you very well indeed. He knows your dreams and visions, your hopes and fears, your loves and losses, the joys and the scars. He knows life's walking wounding, which is all of us in one way or another. He's immense.
And .. there's no end to Brel. How well do you know Brel? If you don't know him, then take the plunge. You will recognize his world. If you know Brel well, you will never know him better than he knows you; he knows you very well indeed. He knows your dreams and visions, your hopes and fears, your loves and losses, the joys, the scars. He embraces all of life's walking wounding, which is all of us. He's immense. And you know him too: since ever.
You can't follow Brel.
But I'll try. I love the songs of Juliette Greco. She doesn't seem to get much of a mention these days. Now that Charles Aznavour has left us, she is probably the last one of that great tradition standing. I have much of her work. It's mainly on vinyl. I've had a hard time piecing it all back together on CD. A song of hers I've always loved is a lesser known Brel song, Je Suis Bien. I could never find it, until recently, the version from the La Femme album, that is. (I know she re-did it, in a very nice version, but it's the La Femme version I love most of all. It was my first Juliette Greco album and I love it to this day).
Well, I hope you are indeed well.
And I wish the Brel well. At 90, he's in fine fettle. A couple of articles in French here. It's always good to brush up your French. I'm about to begin French on Duolingo. I did French at A level, but need to get up to speed again, not least because a lot of my favourite singers are French or sing in French.
Chanteur d’envergure mondiale, puis acteur au théâtre et au cinéma, Jacques Brel est le plus grand artiste qu’ait couvé la Belgique.
I don't care too much for the versions by others, although I would exempt Juliette Greco from that, she's fantastic; and Scott Walker, for his great voice and for his discovering of European song. And a few others. But it's Brel that interests me. I like my Brel neat and complete. I like it all, in the raw. Frankly, you can never get tired of the Brel, it's all in there. Tired of Brel, you are tired of life. He was known as “Abbe Brel” in the 1950's, and although he lost his religion later, I still say he retained a certain idealism in the disillusion of the years of growth, realizing that we human beings are all compromised in some way by the less than ideal lives we have to lead. He takes our hopes and our fears and he earths them, like a true priest should. I'm not sure he can save souls, but he can certainly sooth them.
What the heck, why not another song? Indulge your passions, I say. This is a particular favourite among many favourites:
"Non Jef t'es pas tout seul
On sera bien tous les deux
On rechantera comme avant
Comme quand on était beaux, Jef
Comme quand c'était le temps
D'avant qu'on soit poivrots
Allez viens Jef, viens
Oui, oui Jef, oui viens."
Phew! Still breathing? Good. It's a good start.
It's hard to pick favourites when it comes to Brel. He wrote, sang, and performed gems, about all of life. You're in there, the people you know, the things you have done, the things you have wanted to do, the things that you may one day do: if you are lucky, or unlucky.
I love this next song. This was his great breakthrough record from 1956, redone in 1972 with piano. This pretty much sums up the idealism of the early years, which survived the scars of life which came later.
The next is the only song that Jacques Brel and Elvis Presley shared in common
A friend, a priest, and a poet for all seasons, all occasions and all people.
And not just for the sensitive souls. His words and music have a tender side, of course. But Brel had one heck of a tongue on him, and wasn't shy of lashing all who deserved it with it. I like what Alison Moyet said about those bare-chested, almost mute men who admitted next to nothing about their true emotions - this is poetry for the tough guys who would otherwise never let you know about their heartbreak.
This is music where the soul never dies.
Happy Birthday, Monsieur Brel, Belgian Soul Brother Number One.