Jacques Brel: Ne Me Quitte Pas

Belgian singer Jacques Brel co-wrote “Ne Me Quitte Pas” with pianist/composer Gérard Jouannest, Juliette Greco's husband who accompanied both Brel and Greco for many years. Brel reportedly wrote this song while sitting at the café Au Rêve in Montmartre, not far from the apartment of his mistress Susanne (“Zizou”) Gabriello. The song appeared in 1959 on Brel’s 4th album “La valse à mille-temps.” Brel and Gabriello had carried on a turbulent relationship for several years after they met on a singing tour organized by Jacques Canetti. She showed him the door when he refused to recognize the child he fathered and she later had an abortion.

The song addresses a topic with widespread coverage in “chanson.” Issues of “leaving,” “absence” and “separation” have received extensive coverage in songs by artists like Johnny Hallyday (“Si tu pars”), Jean-Jacques Goldman (“Puisque tu pars”) and many others. Separation is a hugely disruptive occurrence in human affairs that resonates over time and space. Even with a single song like “Ne me quitte pas,” successive interpretations provide alternative perspectives on the consequences and emotional impact of separation and they reveal different approaches to persuade another person to remain or return or to accommodate their departure. The contrast provided here between Jacques Brel's song and Rod McKuen's adaptation is a case in point.

A crux of Brel’s performances is visual. As an actor, he honed technique. The rendition he recorded on November 10, 1966 on French TV (shown below) is painful to watch. He begs his lover not to leave and he is supplicant and self-humiliating. He cries, he sweats, he blubbers. Brel’s performance was atypical for a male singer of the time, with tears, supplications and groans that led Edith Piaf to remark: “A man should not sing that.”

It is tempting to see a thread of satire or sarcasm in the song, since Brel tends to portray women as demanding and unfaithful, and men as deranged fools. What was he thinking? Indeed, Brel commented that it was not a love song at all but a “hymn to the cowardice of men:” “C'est l'histoire d'un con et d'un raté, ça n'a rien à voir avec une femme” (“It’s a song about an idiot and a failure, it has nothing to do with a woman.”). One suspects that this rationalization was a retrospective fig-leaf to shield his family back in Brussels (wife Thérèse Michielsen and 3 daughters) from further humiliation at his profligate extra-marital affairs.

Brel sings in clipped words that project urgency and desperation; his mouth ejects each word painfully. Brel’s song has a narrative arc. It unfolds in 5 verses, punctuated by 5 plaintive refrains that repeat the 4 spare words “Ne me quitte pas” 23 times. In Verse 1, Brel ticks off things they must forget--the misunderstandings and wasted hours spent quarreling with questions of "how" and "why." Verse 2 enumerates things he will do--giving her “pearls of rain,” working the land, and creating a realm of love. Verse 3 entices with stories he will weave about lovers loving twice and a king who dies with a broken heart at never meeting her. Verse 4 imagines how nature fashions re-birth, and Verse 5 brings it all home with a vow to remain silent and to cringe in the shadows. The arc peaks with the soaring melody in the "rain pearls" line that he learned on piano as a child and borrowed from Franz Liszt (Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, Andante). Brel sprinkles jewels of verbal imagery throughout the lyrics: “perles de pluie,” “d’or et de lumiere,” “ancien volcan,” “terres brulées,” “L’ombre de ton ombre, L’ombre de ta main, L’ombre de ton chien.”

Ne me quitte pas,

Il faut oublier

Tout peut s'oublier

Qui s'enfuit déjà

Oublier le temps

Des malentendus

Et le temps perdu

À savoir comment

Oublier ces heures

Qui tuaient parfois

À coups de pourquoi

Le coeur du bonheur

Ne me quitte pas

Moi je t'offrirai

Des perles de pluie

Venues de pays

Où il ne pleut pas

Je creuserai la terre

Jusqu'après ma mort

Pour couvrir ton corps

D'or et de lumière

Je ferai un domaine

Où l'amour sera roi

Où l'amour sera loi

Où tu seras reine

Ne me quitte pas

Je t'inventerai

Des mots insensés

Que tu comprendras

Je te parlerai

De ces amants-là

Qui ont vu deux fois

Leurs coeurs s'embraser

Je te raconterai

L'histoire de ce roi

Mort de n'avoir pas pu

Te rencontrer

Ne me quitte pas

On a vu souvent

Rejaillir le feu

De l'ancien volcan

Qu'on croyait trop vieux

Il est parait-il

Des terres brulées

Donnant plus de blé

Qu'un meilleur avril

Et quand vient le soir

Pour qu'un ciel flamboie

Le rouge et le noir

Ne s'épousent-ils pas?

Ne me quitte pas

Je ne vais plus pleurer

Je ne vais plus parler

Je me cacherai là

À 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

Ne me quitte pas

Don’t leave me,
We must forget
All can be forgotten
That is fading already.
Forget the time
Of misunderstandings
And the time lost
To learn “how.”
Forget these hours
That sometimes killed,
With blows of “why,”
The heart of joy.

Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me

Me, I will offer you
Pearls of rain
Coming from lands
Where it doesn’t rain.
I will work the land
Until after my death
To clothe your body
With gold and light.
I will create a realm
Where love will be king
Where love will be law
Where you will be queen.

Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me

I’ll invent for you
Crazy words
That you will understand.
I'll tell you
About lovers
Who twice saw
Their hearts enflamed.
I will tell you
The story of a king
Dead from being unable
To meet you.

Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me

We have often seen
The fire reborn
Of an old volcano
That we thought too old.
There exist, it seems
Scorched fields
Yielding more wheat
Than the best of April.
And when evening comes
So that the sky enflames
The red and the black
Don’t they fuse?

Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me

Don't leave me
I won't cry anymore
I won't say any more
I'll hide there
To watch you
Dancing and smiling
And to hear you
Sing and then laugh
Let me become
The shadow of your shadow
The shadow of your hand
The shadow of your dog

Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me

.NB:
1. A coups de pourquoi: In this verse, Brel cites a litany of things that must be forgotten because they kill the "heart of happiness." These things include misunderstandings, asking "how," and demanding "why." Killing can occur with blows of a knife, but also by "coups de pourquoi."

If You Go Away

Rod McKuen (1933-2015) adapted Brel's song into English in 1966 with the title “If You go Away.” McKuen was an American songwriter who spent time in France in the early 1960s and translated/adapted many French songs into English, particularly those of Jacques Brel. He became a highly successful poet, songwriter and composer (e.g. "Seasons in the Sun"), earning two Academy Award nominations for music and sold massive numbers of songs, albums and books. He led a colorful life, propelled by early years of abuse as a youth. McKuen was instrumental in introducing Brel to the American public as part of the larger project of Erik Blau and Mort Shuman with the New York musical review “Jacques Brel is Alive and Living in Paris” (1968-72).

McKuen's adaptation of “Ne me quitte pas,” shown here, included new lyrics with rhyming lines and a song structure that closely matched Brel’s original. McKuen's vocal performance in a husky, mellow sing/talk voice, however, transmits little of the urgency or desperation that animates Brel. The title itself (“If You Go Away”) posits only a hypothetical, conditional future event that contrasts with Brel’s stark immediate insistence: “Don’t Leave Me.” McKuen entirely omits Brel's acknowledgement and implicit apology in the first verse regarding past quarrels and wasted time that sets the stage for his subsequent pleading. In fact, in McKuen's telling, there is no way to know why the other person may be leaving. He also excludes Brel's imaginative fourth verse analogies drawn from the natural world that imply the possibility of new beginnings arising from old disasters ("fire reborn of an old volcano," "scorched fields yielding more wheat," and evening's fusion of red and black). McKuen's lyrics flip-flop between the consequences “if you go” and what he will do “if you stay.” It is as though McKuen is an economist sitting on a fence contemplating the merits of policy: "on the one hand...on the other hand." In an alternating fashion, McKuen dedicates the first, third and fifth of his five verses to what will occur if she goes away, as he knows she will, and the second and fourth verses to what he will do if she stays.

McKuen’s imagery is flaccid compared with Brel's. "If you go away," McKuen envisages a host of equally unlikely outcomes: "take the sun away," "tell the world to stop turning," "dying slowly," an "empty room full of empty space." On the other hand, "If you stay," he promises: “a day like no day has been,” “sail on the sun,” “ride on the rain,” "talk to the trees," "worship the wind." Putting oneself in the position of his addressee, it is hard to imagine the generalities of his argument changing anyone’s mind. In any case, the lines "as I know you will" and "as you turn to go" in the third verse suggest that he has factored in eventual failure and already knows that departure is imminent. At least, McKuen pays hommage by including Brel's iconic "shadow of the dog" line in the final verse.

McKuen’s English version has been covered by many artists including Neil Diamond, Shirley Bassey, Glenn Campbell, Dusty Springfield, and Frank Sinatra. Most of them are uninspired performances. Quite frankly, Brel's performance is hard to top. More recently, the song was included in the soundtrack for the 2024 movie "Joker: Folie à Deux" by Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga.

One of the most appealing English-language interpretations adopts a different approach. It is a jazz rendition of “If You Go Away” by American vocalist Helen Merrill and saxophonist Stan Getz. It combines Merrill singing part of McKuen’s lyrical adaptation with Stan Getz’s jazz reformulation of Brel’s melody. Getz leads off with a sax introduction, and during Merrill's vocal section, the sax yields to piano accompaniment. This piece appeared on their 1989 album "Just Friends" and reappeared online in 2014 at YouTube as a tribute to Italian film actress Virna Lisi who died that year.

This rendition makes several changes to McKuen's lyrics so it's at three removes from Brel. It omits McKuen's numerous lines of "ne me quitte pas" throughout the choruses that telegraph a connection with Brel's piece. It drops McKuen verses and choruses that foster the "if/then" confusion and mercifully eliminates Brel's embarrassing line about becoming the shadow of her dog. There's a lot of trimming, but it transmits a similar message at a lower voltage and makes a good listen.

Verse
If you go away
On this summer day
Then you might as well
Take the sun away
All the birds that flew
In the summer sky
When our love was new
And our hearts were high
When the day was young
And the night was long
And the moon stood still
For the nightbirds’ song

Chorus
If you go away
If you go away
If you go away

Verse
But if you stay
I'll make you a day
Like no day has been
Or will be again
We'll sail the sun
And we'll ride on the rain
We'll talk to the trees,
And worship the wind
Then if you go
I’ll understand
We need just enough love
To hold in my hand

Chorus
If you go away
If you go away
If you go away
If you go away

Verse
If you go away
As I know you must
There'll be nothing left
In the world to trust
Just an empty room
full of empty space
Like the empty look
I see on your face
I'd have been the shadow
Of your shadow
If I thought it might keep me by your side

Chorus
If you go away
If you go away
Please don't go away

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