Brel

I watched a TV programme about Jacques Brel a few months ago, which still sticks in my mind because of its insights into a complex man and the songs he wrote & sang. I think that it was the recognition of so many conflicting emotions in a single person and the way in which these were reflected in his music, that swayed it for me. He didn't just sing "love songs": they had twists which made them darker, with less surface appeal but more meat beneath the skin. He could start a verse upright and with a poker face, move to mania, sadness and despair within three minutes, taking the audience with him.

"Le Moribond" is perhaps the example which has stayed with me. I've known the song in English translation for years, as sung in the mid-'70's as "Seasons in the Sun". The English version is upbeat, remembering only the good things in life with a jauntiness that belies the death at the heart of the song; but Brel's French original is so hard, so despairing, so believably human that there is no comparison. At the heart of the song is the enduring question of life: "What is it, to be a man?"

I suppose it's appropriate that I write this on Valentine's night, as "Le Moribond" hinges upon the interplaying themes of love, infidelity, friendship and death so harshly.


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