Jacques Brel
Les Marquises

THE REVIEW

“Brel”, later renamed as “Les Marquises”, represents the musical testament of the great Belgian songwriter. The author's name, printed on the album cover in letters with white outlines and transparent interiors, blends with the horizon above which it is printed, at that time, foreshadowing, and now, recalling the fusion of the authorial essence with contemplative vastness. Brel did not love singing in public and had decided to retire from the stage in 1968. If he did not like performing, viewing it as a commodification of his body, fed to the spotlight and the hungry gazes of admirers, on the other hand, he loved adventure. His daughter recounted in an interview that her father, armed with a pilot's license, had decided to travel around the world, but then fell in love with the silence and anonymity he found on the Marquesas Islands, located in French Polynesia.

Brel died of lung cancer on October 9, 1978, only a year after completing “Les Marquises”.

Each song was recorded in one take, with the help of his closest collaborators (Gréco, Jouannest, and Rauber). As far as we know, at the time of the recordings, he could count on the help of only one lung.

Inside “Les Marquises”, Brel poured his entire life ideology.

The album's opening has a certain political connotation. The album begins with “Jaurès”.

Wikipedia comes to our aid to know who he was: “A committed pacifist, who wanted to prevent by diplomatic means what would become World War I, Jaurès tried to create a common pacifist movement between France and Germany that would pressure their respective governments through the tool of the general strike. Jean Jaurès was assassinated in a Paris café by Raoul Villain (a young French nationalist who wanted war with Germany) on July 31, 1914, a day before the mobilization that started the war.”

Pacifist is an adjective we could well attribute to the Belgian songwriter who, among his “life attitudes”, also included being a philanthropist.

“They were worn out at fifteen, already finished at birth,
all twelve months were called December.
What life did our grandparents have,
between absinthe and great celebrations,
already old before being […]

one cannot say they were slaves,
one cannot say they were alive
when you start already defeated
it's hard to flee […]

why did they kill Jaurès?

why did they kill Jaurès?

The track begins with a very brief accordion strike, immediately followed by Brel's profoundly deep voice. Voice, in the foreground, singing with its usual sharp and well-delivered strikes, and accordion, linear, almost entirely in the background, except for a few brief moments, are the absolute protagonists of this track.

The voice and the word, indeed, constitute the strength of Jacques Brel, and his voice is the true protagonist of this album.

We could distinguish tracks with a more frenetic pace from those more contemplative, but this would remain a distinction of purely musical order, as the entire set of tracks is united by being a long introspective reflection by the songwriter.

We said the record opens with “Jaurès”, a track that denotes the philanthropy of “Grand Jacques”.

Along the line of “Jaurès”, Brel wrote and recorded in this work: “Le Bon Dieu”, “Voir un ami pleurer”, and “Jojo”.

In the first of the three songs mentioned, the “Grande Jacques”, sings:

“You, if you were the Good Lord,
You wouldn't be stingy
With the blue sky,
But you are not the Good Lord,
You, you are much more,
You are a man”

Brel grew up in a deeply Catholic family and probably developed his deep faith in human beings after being crushed and disappointed by the faith in God that was taught to him.

In an interview given to French television on December 24, 1968, the songwriter asserted:

“I believe that men are wonderful. Perhaps it should be said to them...”

As commentary on “Voir un ami pleurer” and “Jojo”, once clarified that Jojo was the Belgian songwriter's greatest friend, I would once again rely on Brel's own words.

“The fidelity of certain men, face to face with other men, moves me to tears. I find it beautiful; I find it noble. I think it's much greater

than all other feelings”

[Brel parle, January 7, 1971]

The other tracks on the album cannot be grouped under a common theme.

Being “Les Marquises” an album written with the awareness of one's imminent departure, one last mention deserves the track “Vieillir”.

Always during an interview, Brel was asked if he was afraid of death and he replied:

“no, it is a certainty for me and I am not afraid of it. It is evident that I don't want to suffer for ten years; I don't like suffering and I would be crazy if I did, but at the thought of going

to sleep and not waking up again, I am not distressed. It seems to me in the order of things”

From what emerges from the track in question, he considered the slow decay brought by aging much worse.

Considering such reflections rather representative and believing that music has its peculiar communicative capacity, clearly not reproducible simply in words, I leave you with the discovery of the other tracks through listening, hopeful to have encouraged you to discover this album.