Ne me quince pas

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Jacques Brel, 1955

Ne me quitte pas is a chanson by the Belgian chansonnier Jacques Brel in French . It was recorded for the first time on September 11, 1959 and published in the same year on Brel's fourth long-playing record, which is called La valse à mille temps on CD , by Philips .

The song is about a man who, in growing desperation, begs a woman not to leave him. It was sung to one of the best known and most successful chansons by Jacques Brels and by many other artists in cover versions . Especially the English version If You Go Away by Rod McKuen found numerous interpreters. The song was translated into German by Max Colpet, among others, as Please do not go away , sung by Marlene Dietrich , and by Heinz Riedel as Do not go away from me , sung by Klaus Hoffmann .

Emergence

As with all of his chansons, Brel wrote the lyrics to Ne me quitte pas himself. The music was the result of a collaboration between Brel and his pianist Gérard Jouannest . However, in contrast to many later collaborative works, the song was only registered under Brel's name, as Jouannest was not yet registered in the French collecting society SACEM at that time .

According to Suzanne Gabriellos , who was Jacques Brel's lover at the time the chanson was written, Brel wrote the chanson for her and introduced it with the words: "I wrote a song for you and now I will sing it to you." In fact, Brel sang the song in the presence of Gabriellos and a couple of friends. He later claimed, however, “It's just the story of an asshole and a failure. It has nothing to do with any woman. "

music

Ne me quitte pas was arranged by François Rauber . It is introduced by an unusual instrument, the singing sound of the Ondes Martenot . Then Jouannest starts playing the piano, which Marc Robine describes as "déliée et poignante" (clear and pointed) and which reminds him of a nocturne . The introductory theme "mi-mi fa-mi-mi" (EE FEE) is, according to Robine, a musical quote from the second movement of the Sixth Hungarian Rhapsody by Franz Liszt . France Brel and André Salée, on the other hand, report that the song was written after Brel heard pictures from an exhibition in the editing of Maurice Ravel and was fascinated by the voice against the trumpet.

Tone sequence at the beginning of the odd stanzas

The song consists of five stanzas with opposing melodic movements in odd and even stanzas. The former are characterized by a constant repetition of the same measure with an only slightly varying sequence of notes, resulting in a movement that descends note by note. The straight stanzas also show the same rhythm, but strongly modify the melody in an ascending movement. All stanzas end with the four repetitions of “Ne me quitte pas”, the last repetition being sung weakest and most pleadingly. In total, the leitmotif is repeated 23 times in the course of the song.

Brel's singing alternates between depression in the odd and euphoria in the even stanzas. While the voice is calm and firm at the beginning, it becomes more and more agitated and painful as the chanson progresses. Only a piano accompanies the first two stanzas. Violins begin in the third stanza, whose elongated notes intensify the impression of pain. In the fourth stanza the crescendo of a clarinet joins, before in the final stanza only the trembling ondes Martenot and the trills of the piano accompany the singing, whereby the ondes martenot continues to sound after the singing is stopped and does not seem to want to end.

Text and interpretation

According to Stéphane Hirschi, the chanson Ne me quitte pas is not a love song , although it is often classified as such. Rather, it is the character study and the description of a special form of love, "l'amour lâche" ("cowardly love"). A man who wants to leave his wife begs her to stay with him. His requests remain unanswered, and the woman is silent. In his desperate struggle for the continuation of love, the man tears himself more and more until he finally loses all his dignity and begins to dissolve himself. In his own words, Brel wanted to show, “jusqu'où il ne faut pas aller” (“where it shouldn't go”).

For Patrick Baton, Ne me quitte pas Brels characterizes “poétique de l'impossible” (“ Poetics of the Impossible”): A man who is no longer able to win his partner's love, takes refuge in illusions and the promise of unattainable miracles. The person of the partner is moving more and more into the background. Instead of their love, the lover loves love in itself. His love is characterized by narcissism , which makes a real exchange with someone else impossible. Regardless of the pathos of his lecture and the exaggerated poetic images in which the man dresses his promises of love, his self-denial in the end proves his impotence for Chris Tinker . Like many Brelian heroes, the man declares his love for the purpose of his life, for his God, but according to Monique Watrin it vacillates between the extremes of madness and death.

In the first stanza you hear a man who is unwilling to admit defeat and speaks against the silence of his wife. The man's sentences keep breaking off in an anacoluth . A central expression of the chanson is "oublier le temps" ("forgetting the time"), which goes beyond the forgetting of past incidents between the partners and generally wants to stop the passage of time, which threatens people's (co) life. The second stanza also shows the man's rebellion against reality. He tries to revive dying love through miracles he has created such as “perles de pluie” (“pearls from rain”). The love for "roi" ("king") and "loi" ("law") is exaggerated, and adoration is declared to be "pure" ("queen").

The third stanza is again marked by melancholy . The "histoire de ce roi" ("story of this king") is still being reported, thus keeping the rebellion of the second stanza alive, but the hopelessness of the rebellion against fate can already be felt. The fourth stanza once more expresses the man's enthusiasm, but he has already lost the certainty of the second stanza. With the natural wonders described - such as a volcanic eruption as a metaphor of passion - reference is made to the “creuserai la terre” (“digging through the earth”) of the second stanza. But the man has to reassure himself again and again of the confirmation by the testimonies of others, his “je” (“I”) has passed into a general “on” (“man”).

Finally, in the fifth and final stanza, the ego is completely obliterated. The man withdraws to the reflection of a previous happiness. Now he asks nothing more than his beloved to watch her dancing, singing and laughing, he wants to develop into “ombre de ton ombre” (“shadow of your shadow”). And as if it were possible to belittle yourself even further, it even mutates into “ombre de ton chien” (“Your dog's shadow”). In the end there is no more dignity left for him, only the mechanically repeated obsession “Ne me quitte pas” (“Don't leave me”).

For Hirschi, Ne me quitte pas shows the complete annihilation of a person who clings to his words so as not to fall silent, not to die yet. In the straight stanzas he builds up an imaginary world with which he tries to cover up reality. Brel describes a journey into hell up to the final symbols of the hand (hand of death) and the dog (the hellhound Cerberus ). In the end, the person addressed is not just a beloved woman, but life itself, which gives no answers to people in their loneliness. Beyond the mere meaning of a love song, Ne me quitte pas is a chanson about love for life, whose global success can also be attributed to this subliminal existential meaning.

Interpretations

Ne me quitte pas was sung by Brel himself in several versions (see the list of chansons and publications by Jacques Brel ). The French original recording from 1959 was followed by the translation Laat me niet alleen into Flemish in 1961 . In the same year Brel sang a live version at the Paris Music Hall Olympia . In 1972 a newly orchestrated recording followed with Barclay.

Numerous other singers interpreted the chanson in the original French or in a translation into other languages, see the list of performers of Jacques Brel's chansons . As early as 1988, there were 270 versions of the song in the United States and 38 in Japan.

The American version If You Go Away by Rod McKuen sung by Damita Jo reached number 68 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 10 on the Adult Contemporary chart in 1966 . After the success of his Brel adaptation Seasons in the Sun , Terry Jacks also took over the song and thus reached the British Top 10. Other interpreters of McKuen's version included Frank Sinatra , Jack Jones , Shirley Bassey , Dusty Springfield , Glen Campbell , Johnnie Ray , Julio Iglesias , The Seekers , Scott Walker , Neil Diamond , Ray Charles , Chet Baker , Stan Getz , Helen Merrill and Cyndi Lauper . McKuen's translation shows clear differences to Brel's original version: While there an emotional, pleading request is directed to the beloved, which extends to self-humiliation, the verses in McKuen's are much more rational and understanding and, according to Thomas Weick, have the “sweetish character of an almost banal 'love story' ”. This is reinforced by the fact that some interpretations, such as those by Tom Jones , omit the last verse of the song.

The first translation into German came from Max Colpet , whose Request Don't Go Away was sung by Marlene Dietrich in 1963 . This version also differs significantly from the Brel original. So the perspective has changed from a man to a woman and the omission of the last stanza again lacks the level of meaning of self-extinction. In her interpretation of the song, Liesbeth List repeated the first stanza instead of the omitted fifth stanza, giving the song a hopeful conclusion to the union of the lovers. The translation by Heinz Riedel Don't go away from me from the volume Der zivilisiert Affe from 1970 was sung by the singer-songwriter and Brel interpreter Klaus Hoffmann .

reception

According to Thomas Weick, Ne me quitte pas is “the most famous and most successful Brel chanson worldwide”. In a study of the French polling institute IFOP on behalf of the station France Inter for "la plus belle chanson d'amour du répertoire français?" ( "The most beautiful French love song") under 40 to be selected songs landed Ne me quitte pas with 20% of the vote, clear distance in first place. Frédéric Brun named the song in the music magazine Paroles et Musique in 1988 "peut-être la chanson d'amour du siècle" ("perhaps the love song of the century").

literature

  • Jacques Brel: Tout Brel . Laffont, Paris 2003, ISBN 2-264-03371-1 , pp. 179-181 (copy of the text).
  • Stéphane Hirschi: Jacques Brel. Chant contre silence . Nizet, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-7078-1199-8 , pp. 361-370.
  • Monique Watrin: Brel. La quete du bonheur . Sévigny, Clamart 1990, ISBN 2-907763-10-5 , pp. 83-86.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marc Robine: Le Roman de Jacques Brel . Carrière, Paris 2003, ISBN 2-253-15083-5 , p. 637.
  2. Mes Chansons on jacquesbrel.be .
  3. a b Don't go away from me ( Memento of the original from December 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of Klaus Hoffmann . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.klaus-hoffmann.com
  4. Olivier Todd: Jacques Brel - a life . Achilla-Presse, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-928398-23-7 , p. 158.
  5. Olivier Todd: Jacques Brel - a life , p. 131.
  6. Marc Robine: Le Roman de Jacques Brel , pp. 177-178.
  7. Stéphane Hirschi: Jacques Brel. Chant contre silence , p. 361.
  8. Stéphane Hirschi: Jacques Brel. Chant contre silence , pp. 362, 364.
  9. Monique Watrin: Brel. La quête du bonheur , p. 83.
  10. Stéphane Hirschi: Jacques Brel. Chant contre silence , pp. 361-362.
  11. Stéphane Hirschi: Jacques Brel. Chant contre silence , p. 362.
  12. Patrick Baton: Jacques Brel. L'imagination de l'impossible . Labor, Brussels 2003, ISBN 2-8040-1749-4 , pp. 181-183.
  13. Chris Tinker: Georges Brassens and Jacques Brel. Personal and Social Narratives in Post-War Chanson . Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 2005, ISBN 0-85323-758-1 , p. 86.
  14. Monique Watrin: Brel. La quête du bonheur , pp. 84–85.
  15. Stéphane Hirschi: Jacques Brel. Chant contre silence , pp. 362-366.
  16. Stéphane Hirschi: Jacques Brel. Chant contre silence , pp. 366-367.
  17. Stéphane Hirschi: Jacques Brel. Chant contre silence , p. 367.
  18. Stéphane Hirschi: Jacques Brel. Chant contre silence , pp. 367-368.
  19. Stéphane Hirschi: Jacques Brel. Chant contre silence , pp. 362-363.
  20. Thomas Weick: The reception of the work of Jacques Brel . Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-631-42936-3 , p. 229.
  21. If You Go Away - Damita Jo on Billboard .
  22. Terry Jacks at SWR 4 .
  23. Flightplan for October 16, 2002. ( Memento from July 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) on Rod McKuen's website.
  24. Thomas Weick: The reception of the work of Jacques Brel , pp. 233, 236-237.
  25. Marlene Dietrich - The time comes for everything on hitparade.ch .
  26. ^ Thomas Weick: The reception of the work of Jacques Brel , p. 232, 235–236.
  27. Heinz Riedel: The civilized ape . Damocles, Ahrensburg 1970.
  28. ^ Thomas Weick: The reception of the work of Jacques Brel , pp. 229–230.