History Music / JacquesBrel

* FunWithHomophones: Several of them in the chorus of "La valse à mille temps": Brel first uses the homophony between "à vingt temps" (with twenty beats) and "à vingt ans" (at twenty years old), then "à cent temps" (with a hundred beats) and "ça s'entend" ([it] can be heard), and finally between "à mille temps" (with a thousand beats) and "a mis l'temps" (took the time [to]).

* HurricaneOfPuns: The refrain of "La Valse à Mille Temps" is built around puns on different phrases that sound the same (''mille temps'' and ''mis le temps''), making it almost untranslatable into English; the writers of ''Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris'' simply gave up and retitled the song "Carousel."

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.
* GrandparentalObliviousness: "Les Vieux"
* GreatestHits: Lots!
* GriefSong: "Fernand", "Jojo", "Viellir", "Le Moribond", "Le Dernier Repas", "Tango Funèbre", "La Ville S' Endormait".
* GrowingUpSucks: Songs like "Mon Enfance", "Rosa"'' and "Il Neige Sur Liège" mourn over the end of all the dreams and illusions the protagonist once had as a kid.
* GrowOldWithMe: "La Chanson des Vieux Amants".

* ProtestSong: Several, often a case of TakeThat !

Despite his wide acclaim the singer is still frowned upon in certain circles. He frequently treated women, the Church, Flemings and the Bourgeoisie as AcceptableTargets.

Brel came from a Flemish bourgeoisie family. He had a dull youth in the shadow of the Catholic Church and narrow minded civilians. His early work was rather naive and preachy and in Paris people ridiculed his Belgian accent. Brel then changed his style by switching over to more mature subject matter and a standard French pronunciation. This made him a success both in his own country and soon in the entire world. Despite often referring to his fatherland Brel's music is both timeless and universal. He is the closest Belgium ever came to having a masterful lyricist of international stature à la Music/BobDylan. His native French tongue made his songs a bit more difficult to understand for other languages, but luckily his work has been CoveredUp by artists as varied as Music/FrankSinatra ("If You Go Away", a cover of "Ne Me Quitte Pas" on ''Music/MyWay''), Music/NinaSimone, Music/ScottWalker and Music/DavidBowie. Most music fans in the English speaking world will known him from "Seasons in the Sun", the TranslatedCoverVersion written by Rod [=McKuen=] and popularized by Terry Jacks, which is a sentimental and ludicrously bowdlerised adaptation of Brel's powerful "Le Moribond" ("The Dying Man"), and there's also the revue ''Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris'', which debuted off-Broadway in 1968 and has had numerous theatrical runs, plus a film adaptation in 1975 (which included a cameo by Brel himself).

Brel came from a Flemish bourgeoisie family. He had a dull youth in the shadow of the Catholic Church and narrow minded civilians. His early work was rather naive and preachy and in Paris people ridiculed his Belgian accent. Brel then changed his style by switching over to more mature subject matter and a standard French pronunciation. This made him a success both in his own country and soon in the entire world. Despite often referring to his fatherland Brel's music is both timeless and universal. He is the closest Belgium ever came to having a masterful lyricist of international stature à la Music/BobDylan. His native French tongue made his songs a bit more difficult to understand for other languages, but luckily his work has been CoveredUp by artists as varied as Music/FrankSinatra ("If You Go Away", a cover of "Ne Me Quitte Pas" on ''Music/MyWay''), Music/NinaSimone, Music/ScottWalker and Music/DavidBowie. Most music fans in the English speaking world will known him from "Seasons in the Sun", the TranslatedCoverVersion written by Rod [=McKuen=] and popularized by Terry Jacks, which is a sentimental and ludicrously bowdlerised adaptation of Brel's powerful "Le Moribond" ("The Dying Man"), and there's also the revue ''Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris'', which debuted off-Broadway in 1968 and has had numerous theatrical runs, and also got a film adaptation in 1975 (which included a cameo by Brel himself).

Brel came from a Flemish bourgeoisie family. He had a dull youth in the shadow of the Catholic Church and narrow minded civilians. His early work was rather naive and preachy and in Paris people ridiculed his Belgian accent. Brel then changed his style by switching over to more mature subject matter and a standard French pronunciation. This made him a success both in his own country and soon in the entire world. Despite often referring to his fatherland Brel's music is both timeless and universal. He is the closest Belgium ever came to having a masterful lyricist of international stature à la Music/BobDylan. His native French tongue made his songs a bit more difficult to understand for other languages, but luckily his work has been CoveredUp by artists as varied as Music/FrankSinatra ("If You Go Away", a cover of "Ne Me Quitte Pas" on ''Music/MyWay''), Music/NinaSimone, Music/ScottWalker and Music/DavidBowie. Most music fans in the English speaking world will known him from "Seasons in the Sun", the TranslatedCoverVersion written by Rod [=McKuen=] and popularized by Terry Jacks, which is a sentimental and ludicrously bowdlerised adaptation of Brel's powerful "Le Moribond" ("The Dying Man").

Brel came from a Flemish bourgeoisie family. He had a dull youth in the shadow of the Catholic Church and narrow minded civilians. His early work was rather naive and preachy and in Paris people ridiculed his Belgian accent. Brel then changed his style by switching over to more mature subject matter and a standard French pronunciation. This made him a success both in his own country and soon in the entire world. Despite often referring to his fatherland Brel's music is both timeless and universal. He is the closest Belgium ever came to having a masterful lyricist of international stature à la Music/BobDylan. His native French tongue made his songs a bit more difficult to understand for other languages, but luckily his work has been CoveredUp by artists as varied as Music/FrankSinatra ("If You Go Away", a cover of "Ne Me Quitte Pas" on ''Music/MyWay''), Music/NinaSimone, Music/ScottWalker and Music/DavidBowie. Most music fans in the English speaking world will known him from Terry Jacks' TranslatedCoverVersion "Seasons in the Sun", which is a sentimental and ludicrously bowdlerised English cover of Brel's powerful "Le Moribond".

* BadassBaritone

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Brel's early songs were very saccharine, preachy and full of Catholic inspired messages. Creator/GeorgesBrassens even named him ''l'abbé Brel ("Abbot Brel")''. His Brussels accent was also ridiculed. Brel then decided to change his image. He learned to speak standard French with a very clear pronunciation, free of his native accent, and changed his subject matter to more daring material.

** Example: ''Nous étions deux amis et la Fanette '''m'''' aimait'' (''We were two friends and La Fanette loved '''me''''') in the song "La Fanette" changes its meaning in the final part by only changing one letter in the entire sentence: ''... la Fanette '''l''' aimait'' (''... la Fanette loved '''him'''.'')

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Brel's early songs were very saccharine, preachy and full of Catholic inspired messages. GeorgesBrassens even named him ''l'abbé Brel ("Abbot Brel")''. His Brussels accent was also ridiculed. Brel then decided to change his image. He learned to speak standard French with a very clear pronunciation, free of his native accent, and changed his subject matter to more daring material.

** "Le Moribond" is about a dying man addressing (among others) his wife and his friend who were cuckolding him. [[TheCoverChangesTheMeaning It became a straightforward]] TastesLikeDiabetes song as "Seasons of the Sun".

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: "Jef", "Marieke","Jojo", "Jacky", Germaine in "Les Bonbons"'', all the people in "Ces Gens-Là" and "Je Suis Un Soir D' Eté".
** In "Orly" Brel is at an airport surrounded by a crowd of people, but yet he only observes two young lovers, caught in their own personal tragedy.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar:
** See BlasphemousBoast above for all the anti-religious comments and MyCountryTisOfTheeThatISting for the criticism of his own people.
** In "Au Suivant" Brel sings explicitly about a young soldier who is traumatized since he lost his virginity to a prostitute while waiting in line with other soldiers. Brel even states that he caught the clap!
** In "Amsterdam" Brel sings about sailors in Amsterdam who visits prostitutes.
** In "Jef" he tries to cheer up Jef by telling him that ''at Madame Andrée they have new ones.'' Which is a thinly disguised reference to a brothel.

Brel was full of energy. The singer gave wild concerts where he performed each number with both passionate drama as exaggerated comedy. After the show he never went home straight away, but instead stayed up in the local bars until the early morning light. Even during plane flights to concerts, when he claimed to be relaxing, he used the time to write new songs! Brel abruptly quit giving concerts in 1966 and then switched to new challenges. He translated ''Theatre/ManOfLaMancha'' into French and starred in the French premiere of the musical, starred and directed in a few films (''Film/LesRisquesDuMetier'' for example) and for the remainder of his life he travelled over the ocean to Tahiti. In 1977 he unexpectedly returned to Belgium to record one final album. A year later the chain smoker died at the age of only 49.

Jacques Romain Georges Brel (8 April 1929 – 9 October 1978) was UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}'s most famous and influential singer. Together with Music/GeorgesBrassens and Léo Ferré he is considered to be one of the Big Three of the Francophone music genre {{Chanson}}. He is widely admired for his deeply human, passionate but also cynical and satirical songs. Several of his songs have been become classics: "Ne Me Quitte Pas" and "Le Plat Pays" are his {{Signature Song}}s, but "Amsterdam", "Les Bourgeois", "Le Moribond", "Marieke", "Les Flamandes", "La Chanson de Jacky", "La Valse A Mille Temps", "Ces Gens-là"... are also well known.

* MyCountryTisOfTheeThatISting: Brel was often fiercely critical of the Flemish and especially Flemish-nationalists. Yet he always considered himself to be Flemish, since he was born in Menen and raised by Flemish parents, even though he spoke French and his knowledge of the Dutch language was always rusty.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: "Les Flamandes", "Les F..., F..., F..."'' and ''"Les F...", all targeting the Flemish (nationalists) in Belgium. [[OffendingTheCreatorsOwn Since he was born in Flanders with a Flemish father Brel thought he had a right to criticize his own people]], even though he mostly spoke French instead of Dutch.

* BoomerangBigot: Brel was a Belgian who spoke French and would technically be considered a Walloon. Yet he always identified himself as Flemish, even though he seldom spoke Dutch in real life and always kept a love-hate relationship with the Flemish people. He sang three controversial songs in which the Flemish are brutally mocked and the song "Les F..." was even banned from radio airplay in Flanders back in 1978. In this song Brel even sings that when cultivated Chinese ask him his country of origin, he simply lies that he's from Luxembourg (albeit not without tears between his teeth).

Brel was full of energy. The singer gave wild concerts where he performed each number with both passionate drama as exaggerated comedy. After the show he never went home straight away, but instead stayed up in the local bars until the early morning light. Even during plane flights to concerts, when he claimed to be relaxing, he used the time to write new songs! Brel abruptly quit giving concerts in 1966 and then switched to new challenges. He translated ''Theatre/ManOfLaMancha'' into French and starred in the French premiere of the musical, starred and directed in a few films and for the remainder of his life he travelled over the ocean to Tahiti. In 1977 he unexpectedly returned to Belgium to record one final album. A year later the chain smoker died at the age of only 49.

** "Amsterdam": a song about the Dutch capital city. Brel depicts the sleazy life of sailors there. Music/DavidBowie covered it later on his album ''Music/PinUps''.

Despite his wide acclaim the singer is still frowned upon in certain circles. He frequently treated women, the Church, Flemings and the Bourgeoisie as AcceptableTargets. So people may either LoveItOrHateIt.

Jacques Romain Georges Brel (1929-1978) was UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}'s most famous and influential singer. Together with Music/GeorgesBrassens and Léo Ferré he is considered to be one of the Big Three of the Francophone music genre {{Chanson}}. He is widely admired for his deeply human, passionate but also cynical and satirical songs. Several of his songs have been become classics: "Ne Me Quitte Pas" and "Le Plat Pays" are his {{Signature Song}}s, but "Amsterdam", "Les Bourgeois", "Le Moribond", "Marieke", "Les Flamandes", "La Chanson de Jacky", "La Valse A Mille Temps", "Ces Gens-là"... are also well known.

* WaitingForGodot:
** "Madeleine", in which Brel waits with a flower bouquet for Madeleine, who never comes, yet every week he is standing on the same spot.
** "Zangra", in which a soldier waits for the day he will fight the enemy and become a hero. The day never comes and he goes with pension the very day the enemy invades.

Jacques Romain Georges Brel (1929-1978) was UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}'s most famous and influential singer. Together with Music/GeorgesBrassens and Léo Ferré he is considered to be one of the Big Three of the French music genre {{Chanson}}. He is widely admired for his deeply human, passionate but also cynical and satirical songs. Several of his songs have been become classics: "Ne Me Quitte Pas" and "Le Plat Pays" are his {{Signature Song}}s, but "Amsterdam", "Les Bourgeois", "Le Moribond", "Marieke", "Les Flamandes", "La Chanson de Jacky", "La Valse A Mille Temps", "Ces Gens-là"... are also well known.

'''Jacques Romain Georges Brel''' (1929-1978) was UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}'s most famous and influential singer. Together with Music/GeorgesBrassens and Léo Ferré he is considered to be one of the Big Three of the French music genre {{Chanson}}. He is widely admired for his deeply human, passionate but also cynical and satirical songs. Several of his songs have been become classics: "Ne Me Quitte Pas" and "Le Plat Pays" are his {{Signature Song}}s, but "Amsterdam", "Les Bourgeois", "Le Moribond", "Marieke", "Les Flamandes", "La Chanson de Jacky", "La Valse A Mille Temps", "Ces Gens-là"... are also well known.