Jacques Brel - The Fury and Poetry of Chanson

The origins

Jacques Brel was born on 8 April 1929 in Schaerbeek, near Brussels. His family was partly of Flemish descent, though they spoke almost exclusively French at home. He was educated in strict Catholic schools, where he would excel only in literary subjects.

In 1950 he got married, while his entry into the world of music came two years later, when he began performing in Brussels cabarets, without his family's approval and without much success. In 1953 he moved to Paris, after catching the attention of Jacques Canetti, head of Philips and owner of the famous cabaret Les Trois Baudets.

After a stretch spent between cheap hotels and odd jobs, his musical career seemed to finally take off thanks to Canetti's persistent encouragement, as he was firmly convinced of Brel's talent. In early 1954 Brel entered the studio to record his first album.

Jacques Brel et ses chansons (Philips, 1954-55)

It's known that it was recorded in February 1954, but the release date is less certain. Most databases list March of that same year, while reissues and biographies point to 1955. The matter remains unresolved. What is certain is that it didn't achieve much success at the time, and today it's considered a minor work, with a still-unripe Brel.

Going against the grain, I actually believe this album deserves a place among his best. It's not unlikely that its mediocre reputation stems more than anything from its lack of commercial success, and from a received wisdom that has built up over time through ipse dixit rather than through its actual content - a snake eating its own tail. Pop music history, after all, is full of records commonly dismissed as immature that later reveal themselves to be anything but.

In this specific case, we get nine immediately catchy melodies and nine refined lyrics, delivered with an overwhelming theatrical flair in which we can already find the whole of the Brel who would go on to find fame. The arrangements, courtesy of André Grassi, are all different from one another, turning every track into a gem and ranging from swing to flamenco, from musette to French folk tradition. The icing on the cake is the sound quality: clear and deep, it feels remarkably modern when compared, just to pick a random example, to Italian music of the same period.

"La haine" already shows a poetic talent that's formally impeccable: a couple of metaphors involving the drunkard and the sailor, classic figures for poets the world over, are enough to paint the tedium of bourgeois love with surgical coldness.

In "Grand Jacques" the tone is merciless, exposing all the hypocrisies that the singer - raised strictly observing the oppressive values of Catholicism - was starting to find unbearable: "It's too easy to walk into church, and pour out all your filth, in front of the priest who, in the grey light, closes his eyes to forgive us more easily. So keep quiet, grand Jacques, what do you know of the Good Lord? A hymn, an image, you know nothing better".

Over the ancient sound of a harpsichord moves "Le fou du roi", which depicts a court scene where love and power intertwine grotesquely: "When the jester saw the queen, being courted by a handsome count, he ran away, heart aching, into a wood, to weep in shame. When three days had passed, he returned to the castle, to tell everything, to the king up in the tower. Hearing what he told him, the king laughed all day long, had the count decorated, and had the jester hanged".

The album closes with "Sur la place", one of Brel's bleakest moments, though he would prove far from stingy on that front elsewhere. After spending the song describing feelings such as love and charity through the figure of a mysterious dancer, the artist collapses into disillusionment, declaring that men no longer care about such values. The final, almost spectral lines describe a humanity terribly alone, one that has by now given up on happiness: "Even some days it seems there's a flame in our hearts, but we never want to let its glow shine through. We plug our ears and cover our eyes, we have no love at all for the awakenings of our already-old heart".

Jacques Brel 2. Quand on n'a que l'amour (Philips, 1957)

Recorded over three separate spells between March 1955 and March 1957, and released a month after the sessions ended, this is the album that brought Brel to a wider audience. "Quand on n'a que l'amour" is the first true standard of his songbook: more than its somewhat saccharine lyrics, what stands out is its crescendo structure, which builds in step with the intensifying vocal delivery. A kind of bolero, masterfully orchestrated by André Popp.

The album as a whole, however, has less breathing room than its predecessor: apart from a couple of jazz-leaning tracks arranged by Michel Legrand, the orchestra fills every available space. That's not necessarily a bad thing in itself; the issue is that, being arranged the same way on every track, the overall sensation is of listening to a musical rather than a Brel record. Of course, when it hits the mark, as in the insistent drive of "La bourrée du célibataire", there's little to complain about.

Jacques Brel N° 3 aka Au printemps (Philips, 1958)

Recorded in March 1958 and released a couple of months later, this is the record that marks François Rauber's official entry into Brel's world: seven of the ten tracks on the album bear his name, either as co-writer or arranger. The two had already met in the summer of '56 in Grenoble, on the suggestion of Canetti, who had noticed Rauber during his many appearances in Parisian cabarets as a pianist, among others, for Serge Gainsbourg and Boris Vian. The collaboration didn't continue right away, as Rauber preferred to finish his studies at the conservatory, with the agreement to pick things back up once he had earned his diploma.

This record, however, represents a transitional moment. On one hand, the partnership with Rauber, still finding its footing, struggles to take off (although the melancholic "Dors ma mie" could hold its own among Brel's major repertoire); on the other, André Popp is still involved, and by this point his arrangements, with the exception of the plush jazz of "Demain l'on se marie", come across as stifling. In short, the instrumental dressing fails to showcase Brel's material with the variety it deserves.

Jacques Brel No. 4 aka La valse à mille temps (Philips, 1959)

Recorded in September 1959 and released two months later, this is the album of consecration, both artistically and commercially. Left to their own devices, Brel and Rauber perfect their chemistry and produce a run of songs destined to define an era.

"La valse à mille temps" is one of those songs that makes any music lover wish they'd been around for its release. Every time you listen to it, you wonder what it must have felt like to be hit by such a shock in real time.

The waltz the duo conceived starts slow and gradually speeds up. The arrangement and the distribution of sounds are pure genius: in one channel, accordion and woodwinds pulse away, while in the other a piano embroiders lively but restrained lines, never overwhelming the rest. In the background, double bass, guitar and cymbals accompany with great tact. Brel sings a lyric that's a hymn to youth and the joy of living, and the faster it goes, the more fervent he becomes, right up to the final catharsis, when the brass comes in and he unleashes an avalanche of words in the space of a few seconds. ⟦Q1⟧

"Seul" confirms the dramatic crescendo as one of Brel's trademarks. Despite its scale, the orchestration never feels excessive: classical guitar and flutes, cornet and trombones, strings and metallophones all find their own space while leaving room for everything else. Rauber draws fully on his training here — it's impossible not to notice the kinship between this orchestration and that of the classical composers who engaged with Spanish folklore, Ravel and Falla above all. The lyric returns to grapple with loneliness, starting from the tedium of coupled life and building, at the peak of the crescendo, to the universal human condition: ⟦Q2⟧

"La dame patronesse" is a sarcastic sketch that finally takes direct aim at the Catholic values that Parisian life had by then made intolerable to Brel: ⟦Q3⟧. The music underneath, essentially a 17th-century-style sonata, heightens the song's satirical edge.

Free of all restraint, Brel couldn't resist poking fun at his fellow countrymen too. In "Les Flamandes" he portrays the Belgians as people devoid of any ambition, living out lives mapped in advance and with no room to breathe (though it's clear enough this is just a pretext, and the real target is the bourgeoisie everywhere): ⟦Q4⟧. Here too the mocking arrangement — a small-town fairground march — is tailored to perfection.

"Isabelle", a jazz number that at times recalls Glenn Miller's serenades, is the most delicate track of the lot, a tender dedication to Jacques's second daughter, born the previous year.

It's at least somewhat unsettling that the next track on the album is "La mort". With an utterly masterful command of language, Brel drops a couple of well-chosen symbols and covers an impressive range of meanings and moods with them. Death, for Jacques, is an elusive presence the artist repeatedly envisions in different guises: an old woman, a princess, Carabosse (the original evil fairy from "Sleeping Beauty"), the last leaves on the tree from which his own coffin will be made. Yet amid this storm of images Brel doesn't seem frightened — in fact, at the end of each verse he's careful to note that time will pass more lightly precisely because of this awareness of the end. ⟦Q5⟧. True to its visionary atmosphere, the track isn't gloomy at all; instead it rides a biting tango, cut through by the frantic lines of the horn section.

The record closes with "La colombe", a deeply felt piece Brel wrote about the then-burning issue of Algeria. Today it comes across as a touch rhetorical, but the result is still moving, thanks to the performance, to the insistent string ostinato reminiscent of much 20th-century classical music, and to the distant timpani strikes, which make palpable the sense of looming threat that war has always carried with it.

While every track on the album is remarkable in its own way, "No. 4" is above all tied to one in particular, the fifth on side one. "Ne me quitte pas" is one of the most famous songs of all time. In French or in English, sung by Brel or by any of the many internationally renowned artists who have tackled it, it's practically impossible not to have heard it at least once in your life. It's not easy to understand why this one, out of so many. It's poetic, but it's not Brel's only poetic song; it's heart-wrenching, but not his only heart-wrenching song; it's beautifully arranged, but that's nothing new either. In fact, listening closely, it even sounds a bit challenging, with its somber tone and the total absence of any rhythmic drive. And yet it's precisely this exact combination of notes, sounds and words that has gone on, undeterred, for decades to touch the hearts of millions of people, flying in the face of commercial logic and of anyone who insists there's always a reason for everything.

Besides establishing him as one of the biggest stars of French music, the song is pivotal in Brel's career because it marks his first collaboration with pianist Gérard Jouannest, who would later co-write some of his most celebrated songs. With him, a collaborative triangle is completed that would last until the chansonnier's death.

Jacques Brel 5 aka Marieke (Philips, 1961)

The staggering success of the fourth album (over 200,000 copies: no LP had ever managed that on the French market before) kept him busy throughout 1960, with concert requests piling up, and Brel only managed to get back into the studio in February '61. The new album came out two months later, arranged entirely by Rauber and half-composed by Jouannest.

"Marieke" is one of the songs that best showcases Brel's humanity, the man who rants and raves on stage like a soldier in battle, yet in the studio is capable of crafting the most tender poetry. Sung partly in French and partly in Flemish, it overlays the lovesick throes of youth with places and landscapes typical of Belgium, creating a vivid nostalgic effect. "Marieke, Marieke, the Flemish sky weighed too heavily, from Bruges to Ghent, on your twenty years, which I loved so much, from Bruges to Ghent." The arrangement is weightless: Jouannest's piano sounding like raindrops, an accordion, a thread of orchestra and a few trumpet flourishes at the end.

Over the triplet rhythm of "Le moribond", the protagonist addresses his final words to the people who shaped his life (his best friend, the priest, his wife and her lover). His last request is to face his departure with swagger and contempt for death ("I want everyone to have a blast, I want them to laugh, I want them to dance, when they lower me down").

"On n'oublie rien" has a melody straight out of classic Charles Trenet-style chanson, which Rauber has fun dressing up with xylophones, giving it an oddball exotic flavor. Meanwhile Brel explains in a few words how life works: "You don't forget anything, nothing at all, you just get used to it, that's all." If the sax that comes in completely unexpected at the end makes the song feel more modern than ever, what can be said then of the Caribbean percussion that opens "Clara", a frantic collision of mambo, jazz and liscio?

Rauber is unstoppable by this point, managing to surprise on every single track and to understand exactly where Brel is heading. It was no easy task giving instrumental substance to the songs of such an overpowering performer, essentially a hurricane who would have wrecked most of European pop's orchestrations of the time. But not Rauber's: his arrangements are vivid, richly colored canvases that provide the perfect habitat for him.

Enregistrement public à l'Olympia (Philips, 1962)

Recorded live at the historic Parisian theater from October 27 to 29, '61, it came out at the start of the following year. Six of the songs on the tracklist were unreleased at the time and would appear shortly after on the studio album that followed.

Jacques Brel was famously one of the most astonishing showmen in the history of popular music. His concerts are remembered as unrepeatable rituals, in which the artist thrashed about like a wild animal, dramatizing his stories with extraordinary mime-like performances, invariably ending drenched in sweat. However, with the visual element missing, it's impossible to fully grasp the scale of the event.

The music on the album is gorgeous, the vocal performances thunderous, the atmosphere adrenaline-charged. The fact remains that, when it comes down to just listening, there isn't much reason to prefer these versions over the studio ones, especially considering they tend to stay fairly faithful to them. A record of undeniable worth, in short, but mythologized beyond its actual merits, due to the artist's fame as a live performer.

Jacques Brel aka Les bourgeois (Barclay, 1962)

Recorded in March '62 and released a month later, this is one of Brel's most popular records and marks the arrival of accordionist Jean Corti in the lineup. He wouldn't be as long-lasting a collaborator as the other two, but for a few years he'd make a significant contribution, even co-writing some of the songs.

The record is a touch sparer than its predecessors: the noisier tracks are arranged like brass-band marches, with horns and drums, while the more intimate ones are each dominated in turn by guitar, piano or accordion. Although the orchestra hasn't been eliminated altogether, the use of strings has been rationed and their volume is never overpowering. Underlining the album's atypical position is also the fact that it contains none of those crescendos that had by then become synonymous with the artist.

"Les bourgeois" is nonetheless the most venomous and direct track Brel had recorded up to that point; it's striking to think that such lyrics date back to 1962. In Italy we would have had to wait at least five more years to find a similarly irreverent streak (for instance, the De André of "Carlo Martello…", which still comes across as rather tame by comparison). "And when around midnight the notaries went by, coming out of the 'Three Pheasants' hotel, we'd show them our asses, and our good manners, and sing to them: the bourgeois are like pigs, the older they get the more bestial they become."

"Le plat pays" is another dedication to Belgium, this time of an existential bent. Guitar, voice and the faintest veil of strings: the intimate folk gem is served. "⟦Q1⟧"

"Madeleine" and "Bruxelles" are two infectious romps, with light-hearted lyrics dedicated to elusive loves and nostalgic period snapshots, while the ethereal "Une île", with its percussion and carpet of strings, briefly echoes the fifth album.

Compared to that record, which had partly disappointed commercial expectations, Les bourgeois did better, pushing the artist back above the 200,000-copies mark. From here through 1967, all of his records would sell roughly the same amount, before the market's expansion toward the end of the Sixties allowed for far higher figures.

Olympia 64 (Barclay, 1964)

Recorded on 16 and 17 October '64 at the Olympia and released toward the end of the year, it's slimmer than the previous live album, but perhaps more important, since it contains three songs never recorded in the studio and found only here.

One of these, "Amsterdam", is among Brel's anthems, and on its own could sum up his entire art: a dramatic crescendo with a final outburst, lyrics full of broken hearts, failed and drunken men, sarcasm about women and a condemnation of infidelity. "⟦Q2⟧"

The other unreleased tracks are "Les timides" and "Les jardins du casino", perhaps not quite up there with his finest work, though still fine listening. The rest of the space is taken up by the classic "Le plat pays" and four songs whose studio counterparts came out right around that time, via a series of mini-albums.

Jacques Brel aka Les bonbons (Barclay, 1966)

Three mini-albums, to be precise, released between 1963 and 1965, all titled "Jacques Brel". Soon sold out and never reissued, they were brought together by popular demand in 1966 into two anthologies, with reshuffled tracklists. These too are titled "Jacques Brel", but for convenience are referred to as "Les bonbons" and "Ces gens-là". Still in catalogue today, they are now regarded as two albums in their own right, and find Brel at the peak of his powers.

The music-box melody of "Les bonbons" provides the backdrop for a pitiful little vignette: the protagonist, painted as a hapless fool from the very first notes, goes out with a girl and finds himself dumped the moment she runs into a friend. All chimes and barely-sketched sounds, "Les vieux" caused a stir for lyrics devoid of even a glimmer of hope: "⟦Q3⟧"

"Au suivant" is a sort of torrential habanera in which Brel rails against war: "⟦Q4⟧"

War is also the subject of the tango "Les toros", but this time indirectly, through the metaphor of the bullfight, showing the many ways Brel found to reach the same point: "⟦Q5⟧"

In "La Fanette", Rauber - who had held back on the album's more delicate tracks - finally unleashes all his romanticism through a slow, densely layered orchestration, with mandolin lending a thoroughly Mediterranean air. The lyrics tell of two friends who, one distant summer, fell for the same girl, told from the perspective of the one left out in the cold.

Jacques Brel aka Ces gens-là (Barclay, 1966)

"Ces gens-là" is the crescendo of all crescendos. The lyrics are split into two parts: first the appearance and dramas of a bourgeois family are described, then the focus shifts to their youngest daughter, and we learn that the narrator loves her and that her relatives stand in the way of their relationship. For a good stretch, only Jouannest's piano and the double bass - in unison, in an anguished, stentorian passage - accompany the vocals, then in the second section the tension releases and the orchestra bursts in.

“Jef” is a tragicomic scene between two friends, with an ominous rise-and-fall of strings that melts into the sweet sound of the accordion when the narrator, trying to lift his friend's spirits, reminds him of the good old days.

“Jacky” is a little march with flutes, tuba, ukulele, bass drum and accordion. Its sardonic gait suits perfectly a lyric that mocks singers of every stripe, from mid-level crooners chatting up middle-aged ladies in chic venues, to those who've reached the top and think themselves gods. The contempt peaks in the chorus, where Brel – pretending to envy some unnamed colleague – declares he'd like to “be beautiful for an hour, just an hour now and then, an hour and no more than an hour, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and a fool all at once”.

Much calmer, “Les bergers” is dedicated to the figure of the shepherd, with no particular metaphors or hidden meanings. On the other hand, Rauber delivers one of his finest performances here: over the danceable rhythm set by double bass and Spanish-flavored guitars, small flurries of pipes and harps descend first, then the orchestra, dosed out with crystalline delicacy.

In “Le tango funèbre” the deceased takes issue with the people attending his funeral (“They think about the price of flowers, and find it indecent, not to die in spring, when the lilacs are out”), but it's “Fernand” that steals the show. The exhausting crescendo shows the young protagonist mourning a friend lost in war, before lashing out at women, war and the uncertainty of the future, once again laying bare Brel's obsessions: “You say I'll come back, that I'll come back often, to this damn cemetery, where you must rest. In summer I'll give you shade, we'll drink to the silence, to Constance's health, who couldn't care less about your shadow. And then grown-ups are so stupid, that they'll make us fight another war, so then I really will come, to sleep in your cemetery”.

The semi-serious “Mathilde” sings of unbridled love for a girl over martial, epic music that evokes scenes from a Western duel, complete with a brass jubilation influenced by Latin tradition. Love is again the protagonist of the closing number, the piano-driven “Les désespérés”, but this time there's little to joke about. Grey cities, fog and menacing bridges form the backdrop against which Brel places all those who have suffered harsh heartbreak, painting them as condemned souls wandering without purpose. “They have burned their wings, they have lost their branches, so shipwrecked, that death seems white”.

Jacques Brel 67 (Barclay, 1967)

Recorded and released in September '67, this is a less fresh record than its two previous, sensational outings. In places it feels as if the formula is starting to weigh on the artist himself, who, not by chance, had already announced his retirement from live performance (his last show took place on May 16 of that same year, in Roubaix).

Yet when the battered lion bares his claws, the emotions can still hit hard. Just think of “Fils de…”, an accelerating melodic whirl that recalls the glory days of the thousand-tempo waltz and manages to match its power, or the timeless “La chanson de vieux amants”, in which a couple forgive each other for past quarrels and betrayals, now that old age has made them each other's crutch. “Time goes by and discourages us, torments along our way, but tell me, is there any worse snare, than loving one another out of habit”.

The most controversial moment on the record is “Les bonbons 67”, which brings back the awkward, somewhat ridiculous character introduced to the public three years earlier. At the end of the song comes the twist, as his attentions turn to another boy. The deeply negative portrayal of a gay character has drawn considerable criticism toward Brel, especially in recent times.

Jacques Brel aka J'arrive (Barclay, 1968)

Recorded and released in September '68, this would long remain Brel's last album of new songs. By now exhausted, the artist wrings out his final reserves of energy and crafts what amounts to a temporary farewell.

The songs that make the strongest first impression are those marked by the new collaborator, the versatile accordionist Marcel Azzola, whom we'll meet again on the '77 record. While on the understated “L'éclusier” the instrument plays just a few notes, working mostly on timbre, on the rollicking “Vesoul” it conjures up virtuoso flourishes of rare vitality.

“J'arrive”, with its infamous string surge and triumphant brass breaks, is the meditation on death that – by now almost a recurring tax – creeps into every Brel record, while “L'ostendaise” sees Rauber return to composing after five years devoted exclusively to arrangements. It's a grand comeback, a calm unfurling of enchanted notes guided by piano and harp, as Brel tells of a girl who, tired of waiting for the sailor she's engaged to, ties herself to a pharmacist instead. “There are two kinds of time, there's the time one waits, and the time one hopes for. There are two kinds of people, there are those who live, and those who are out at sea”.

The record sells 490,000 copies, but for the time being, the Brel that matters ends here. That December, national television broadcasts L'homme de la Mancha, the French version of an American musical composed by Mitch Leigh. Brel takes part as translator, producer and as Don Quixote himself. The soundtrack would remain, for four years, the last release bearing his name, selling 120,000 copies. In the meantime he would turn to cinema, appearing in about a dozen films and directing a couple of his own.

Ne me quitte pas (Barclay, 1972)

Recorded in July 1972 and released in September, this is the album in which Brel revisits his own classics. More useful to the artist himself, as a way of looking back and better understanding what his body of songs had meant, than to the public — who nonetheless bought it in droves, pushing it past 550,000 copies. However impeccably arranged and performed, the new versions can't surpass the originals.

A couple of years later Brel discovers he's ill, and convinced he doesn't have much time left, draws up his will and goes to live on the Marquesas Islands, deep in the Pacific Ocean, breaking his retreat only for occasional boat trips, one of his longstanding obsessions.

Brel aka Les Marquises (Barclay, 1977)

In September '77, rumors spread that Brel has returned to Paris and is working on a new album. With no radio preview, interview or promotional appearance to back it up, the album hits stores on November 17th. The artwork is decidedly premonitory: the word "Brel" stands alone against a backdrop of pale blue clouds.

Its release is perceived as a landmark event, being his first album of new material since 1968, and the success exceeds every expectation. It's estimated that to date the album has sold 1,140,000 copies in France alone. It's a triumphant final curtain for the singer, who will die a year later, on the night of October 9, 1978.

Aware that the end is near, Brel pours everything into the album, which is dense with energy and tension.

"Jaurès" is dedicated to the French socialist leader killed in July 1914 while trying to prevent war with Germany. Only the long, subdued notes of Azzola's accordion accompany Brel's voice as he describes the harsh lives of workers of the time, pointing out that it was precisely one of them — the young nationalist Raoul Villain, who wanted conflict with the Germans — who carried out the assassination, even though Jaurès was among the politicians most committed to workers' rights.

In “La ville s’endormait” the historical references evaporate and only the poetry remains, sketching an imaginary city seen at night, where night symbolizes the end of life—specifically the author's own life. “It's true that sometimes, toward evening, birds look like waves, and waves like birds, and men like laughter, and laughter like sobs. It's true that the sea often loses its charm, by which I mean that it sings other songs, different from the songs in children's books”. The arrangement leaves no escape: Jouannest's piano grants only a few notes, repeating them with delicacy, while Rauber's orchestra blankets everything with an inexorable tread, pitch-black.

At the opposite extreme, the irresistible "Les remparts de Varsovie", with its comic lyrics starring a "mischievous" woman, is an old-fashioned chanson marked by lively piano flourishes and the constant needling of the brass section.

While the famous "Voir un ami pleurer" is a touching ballad about friendship and "Vieillir" returns to the tango-death pairing he'd already used in the past, "Les F…" is instead Brel's first foray into disco-funk territory. Its instrumental backbone reworks "The Frog", from the repertoire of Brazilian pianist João Donato, while the lyrics deliver the author's final, definitive attack on Flemish nationalists: "Nazis during the wars, Catholics between one war and the next, forever shifting from rifle to missal, […] you Flamingant gentlemen, go to hell".

Dedicated respectively to a great friend of his who had died three years earlier and to his beloved islands, "Jojo" and "Les Marquises" are the titles the author felt most deeply. The arrangements are minimal, almost as if afraid of bruising the words: one is for solo guitar, the other for barely plucked strings.

Five tracks recorded during the "Brel" sessions were left out of the final selection, with the author's explicit wish that they never be released. That wish was honored until 2003, when his family agreed to include them in the "Boîte à bonbons" box set and in the "Infiniment" compilation.

Among these there is one in particular, "La cathédrale", arguably one of Brel's most beautiful pieces, with its melancholy accordion and the orchestral swell that bursts into an imposing, liberating finale. The lyrics are a daydream in which the author reveals his passion for sailing, imagining he could steer a cathedral as if it were a galleon. "This stone cathedral, soon to be deconsecrated, drag it across the land, until the sea comes to bloom, hoist the sail with a smile, and off, towards England".

The Values of Brel's Microcosm

You cannot take stock of Brel's work without running into its contradictions and without noticing his persistent negativity. Read with today's eyes, those lyrics appear anything but politically correct, but given how much time has passed, it shouldn't be hard to understand the motivations and context that drove this provincial Belgian — raised according to conservative precepts later swept away by the high life of the metropolis, generating an endless series of conflicts and guilt — to such outbursts.

Fortunately, his youthful passion for literature meant that he could express this series of inner conflicts in a colourful, evocative, linguistically refined way, with a depth that still generates empathy today.

It's true that Brel's songs were often sexist (with women depicted variously as devious, selfish, unfaithful, promiscuous), just as it's true that they sometimes expressed homophobic attitudes (think of the effeminate little voices used to introduce the most hapless and inept characters, or the not-so-veiled equation of homosexuality with impotence). On the other hand, it's easy to notice how often even the most typical male figure was described in extremely negative terms: obsessed with his own sex life, unable to hold together the family he'd like to be the pillar of, enslaved to money, cowardly, violent, not infrequently a slave to drink, and so on and so forth.

The basic condition underlying Brel's work can therefore quite simply be described as an all-devouring form of misanthropy, in which no category is safe: noblewomen and prostitutes, heterosexuals and gay men, workers and layabouts, priests and laymen have all, sooner or later, been put in the stocks by the singer.

Brel has absolutely no interest in the oppositions that underpin the social structure we live within. If in "A suivant" he lashes out against soldiers, equating them with murderers, in "Les bonbons 67" the protagonist is - among other things - a militant pacifist, who only does so out of fashion and not because he actually cares about those ideals. In short, humanity seen from a distance is a shapeless, monstrous mass, towards which Brel feels an equal-opportunity revulsion.

Things change in one-to-one relationships, where some of those flaws and ugly traits remain but, thanks to a closer, more in-depth view, positive sides also manage to emerge. Hence the many songs about friendship, the pity for individuals marginalised by the cruelty surrounding them, the romantic moments in which woman takes on humanity and tenderness.

Brel's vision is far too tangled to leave room for superficial controversy. So tangled, in fact, that it was often his own persona that ended up on the receiving end of those same barbs. From the coward who goes to church to clean his conscience in "Grand Jacques", to the squalid ladies' man operating in Knokke-le-Zoute described in "Jacky", Brel never shied away when it came to exposing his own weaknesses.

Influence

In France, Brel remains an unsurpassed model to this day. Many chansonniers, from the most traditional to those closest to rock, have had to reckon with him. Giants of local pop like Serge Lama, as well as masters of the alternative scene like Alain Bashung or, more recently, Damien Saez, owe a fair part of their artistic approach to him.

Barbara, unknown outside national borders but an icon at home and generally considered the greatest French singer-songwriter since Piaf, built her style on Brel's before carving out a path of her own.

As for Belgian star Stromae, omnipresent in recent years, attentive listeners would do well not to dismiss him out of principle, because many aspects of his fellow countryman's legacy can be traced in his work. He need only turn the synth levels down a touch for it to become even more obvious.

Moving elsewhere, it can be said with fair certainty that Brel is the most covered non-English-speaking songwriter of all time (only Jobim comes to mind as a possible rival).

His countless classics boast a myriad of reinterpretations (counting just "Le moribond" and "Ne me quitte pas" alone, there are around six hundred recordings of real significance). Leafing through the names who have drawn from his songbook is enough to make you faint: you'll find absolutely everyone, from Nina Simone to country giant Glen Campbell, from the Teutonic theatricality of Ute Lemper to the Milan of Giorgio Gaber (who owed much of his stage persona to Brel, as he himself always openly admitted).

Why Brel specifically, among the many greats of French music? My opinion is that Brel was, first and foremost, particularly appealing on a musical level.

If we compare him to his contemporary Georges Brassens, an essential figure who in turn laid the groundwork for a certain kind of singer-songwriter tradition (just ask De André), it's impossible not to notice how much more accessible Brel's songs are, at least when the listener has equally little understanding of the lyrics.

Not that one wants to argue that Brassens' songs all sound the same - that would be disrespectful and simplistic - but certainly, relying only on voice and guitar, once you strip away the meaning of the words, they couldn't compete with Brel, who had intricate melodies and lush arrangements on his side, the fruit of teamwork with his outstanding collaborators.

In the early Sixties, Rod McKuen, a Californian songwriter and poet, began translating Brel into English, though he often softened the edges (his lyrics were really too strong for the prudish American audience of the time). Later came Mort Shuman, whose translations - closer to the originals - were used in the musical "Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well And Living In Paris", which ran in New York almost continuously from 1968 to 1972, albeit in mid-sized theatres. It was later adapted into several other languages.

Then there's the sacred figure of Brel the live performer to consider. His sheer intensity on stage, his violent presence, his relentless physical and facial expressiveness, left a deep mark on the approach to performance of many artists who would go on to become leading figures in pop and rock music.

After moving to England, Scott Walker became an ardent admirer of his, and besides covering about a dozen of his songs, he built his live shows around a kind of theatricality that unmistakably recalled Brel's own.

Through Walker, his influence reached David Bowie and Marc Almond, both of whom later became directly devoted to him: Bowie tackled "La mort" ("My Death") and "Amsterdam", with results that were in fact brilliant, while Almond went so far as to dedicate an entire album to him, "Jacques" (1989). In 1973, Alex Harvey, a shooting star of glam rock, took on "Au suivant" ("Next"), in an over-the-top rendition that stuck in the memory of British audiences for a long time.

Another tangible and direct effect of Brel on English-speaking pop musicians, British ones in particular, was a hardening of language. While it's true that some English bands, the Stones chief among them, had already started releasing fairly irreverent songs, their lyrics still read like those of prim schoolgirls next to Brel's.

When Walker - in the eyes of record executives a doll to be sold to fifteen-year-olds, at the mercy of his face and his blond curls - rebelled against the circus and began recording Brel's songs, executives and media found themselves having to deal with lyrics containing unthinkable phrases like "between your thighs", as well as coming face to face with "queers", "gonorrhea", women of low moral standing, colourful anatomical references, psychotic obsessions, attacks on the social order, and so on. The embarrassment was enormous, and in several cases it led to outright censorship: his extraordinary version of "Jacky", for instance (its title simply changed to "Jackie"), fell under the BBC's scissors. By then, though, no matter how much got cut, the process was already underway: Bowie and many others of his generation bought Walker's records, and that new kind of language would spread widely in the years to come.

Of course, this doesn't mean Brel was merely a spark for irreverence: his energy came precisely from his ability to generate a stunning poetic effect despite using such language, and from his skill in measuring it out and alternating it with moments of absolute tenderness. After all, he wouldn't have won over so many generations of artists and listeners if his incendiary choice of words hadn't been part of a far more complex design - one that this feature hopes, in its own modest way, to have paid tribute to.

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