The French Connection

This got me thinking about the McKuen/Brel partnership and as I said a few weekends ago, you can learn a lot from the notes on the back of album covers. The following is taken from the cover of the album "Rod McKuen Sings Jacques Brel" and provides a fascinating and informative insight into one of the greatest musical partnerships of our time.

                                   - Ken, Johannesburg, January 30

I first met Jacques in 1964, but I was into his performing and singing long before that, courtesy of Ellen Ehrlich, who used to interpret his songs for me before I began to translate them myself. My first experience with Brel consisted of doing an unauthorized adaption of Le Moribund, which I called Seasons in the Sun. Ellen, unbeknownst to me, sent it to Jacques.

While in France that summer of '64, I went to visit a friend, Philippe Boutet, who published some of my songs in translation for Europe. During the course of a very pleasant afternoon, I asked him if he had any new songs I might adapt for America. He said yes, that he did have one that was fairly new. It had been written by Jacques Brel for the singer Jean Sablon. He then proceeded to play for me a very rough dub of the song. As I listened I couldn't help feeling I'd heard the song somewhere before, and it was only toward the end of the piece that I realized it was my own song, The Lovers. Somewhat astounded, I pointed this out to Philippe, who said it couldn't be. He went to the phone and called Jacques in Brussels. Jacques confirmed that it was indeed my song and that he had no way to send me a copy of it.

I subsequently learned that Brel had received my recording (which not only contained his song but The Lovers as well) after returning from a long and tiring tour of France. He remarked that he had been so pleased by someone doing something for him without requesting and expecting anything that he immediately returned the compliment by adapting The Lovers into French.

Brel allowed as how he was coming to Paris to see his dentist, and could I stay over? Obviously I could and did. From that first meeting has grown a continuing friendship, and the songs in this album. Listening to it, I am struck with the many references to death, the accumulative political overtones - especially from two men who don't give a damn about politics but who both love their countries passionately, and that oddly - even though we both have a reputation for writing love songs - there is hardly a conventional love song here.

If You Go Away and To You are pleas for a new start to an affair that is drawing to an end. The Statue takes apart hypocrisy. The Women is about the incredible hold females have always had on us mere men - I had an unusual experience with this song once. Glenn Yarbrough was recording it at a session and three generations of females in his life sat in stony silence during the playback. A daughter who was just being quiet, a former wife who glared at a current girlfriend, and Glenn's mother, who said to me, "Are we really like that?" To which I replied, "Yes, and more." Glenn was very uncertain about putting the song in the album and it continues to be the most controversial song of mine he has ever sung.

Song Without Words was a collaboration from start to finish. The French and English lyrics are very much alike. On To You I wrote the melody first and we collaborated on the story line.

Les Bourgeois is humorous and nibbles at the so-called aristocrats. This version of Zangra includes a comment I made to an unsuspecting photographer who nearly blinded me with a flashbulb while I was performing at London's Royal Albert Hall. I hope in a subsequent McKuen/Brel album to include the first recording I made of the song, which is a bit different than the way I perform it now.

Come Jef is an attempt to dissuade a friend from suicide as he stands on a bridge above a river. The Far West is set in the western part of my country. Brel's French lyric refers to the low hills, meadows and flatlands of Belgium.

(The Port of) Amsterdam could be any seaport in any major European or American city, but it will always evoke The Netherlands to me. I'm Not Afraid has only Jacques' melody in common with my lyrics; his song is totally different.

Jacques condensed The Lovers by eliminating the bridges in my music. I expanded The Women by adding bridges. Both Seasons in the Sun and The Far West take in the entire spectrum of a man's life.

This album contains a very unique, and until recently unreleased rendition of Brel singing his adaptation of The Lovers. The original tape was said to have been lost in a Paris warehouse fire during the 1960's. It was only rediscovered when Phillips records began to assemble their mammoth 10 disc survey of Brel's complete oeuvre.

For the most part these songs were never meant to be translations - we think of them as collaborations.

Jacques Brel died in 1978 - but for me he lives on. He was the most brilliant performer I have ever had the privilege of seeing. His writing is both intelligent and concise. As an actor he was fluid and able to be precise and abandoned at the same time. As a friend he was a clown and a bit crazy. I would rather sing songs by Brel than anybody else unless perhaps they were songs by me. For me, then, this album is the best of all possible worlds.

The songs in this collection were written over a seventeen year period that completely changed my life. It will not be the same ever again. The world is not only richer because this most gentle of all men lived and worked in it; but the songs and recordings he made during his lifetime are a legacy to history .... a blueprint for performers, writers and audiences all over the world.

I dedicate this album to his memory, to his widow Nicole, his daughter France Brel .... and, of course, to Mady.

                          - Rod McKuen, January, 1992

IF YOU GO AWAY
(Ne Me Quitte Pas)