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Liz, these are very good songs: witty, clever and well played. Where are you looking to go with this?
I’d like to read up on the plethora of debates as I thought these things were only said in dark corners. Of course they were very different singers and songs, but I cannot help but compare the vivid, imaginative orchestrations for Jacques Brel with the pedestrian “Workers’ Playtime’ type orchestrations for JT.
Quite right. We saw FA at Hall for Cornwall ten days ago. Highly professional, side-splittingly funny. Wordsmithery still lives. Yes, the language is very risqué so those who prefer a feck-free environment should abstain.
Can’t see what you mean by the extra verse – there are the same number as the English version. The last verse and chorus go, literally and not poetically as
Do remember me
But don’t seek me
I’m lost, lost
My old heart is worn out
You’re no longer there, no longer thereGive me one more glass, one more
Landlord, of your famous (alt infamous) glug, glug of eau-de-vie
Which pours all the night
I’ll booze like a madman, why not
I’ve lost my pretty one
I won’t go home tonight
Since she’ son longer there, no longer there, no longer thereCheers
JonathanThank you Hugh. Unfortunately, even though I am a member, the page is not allowing me to watch. I’ll try and sort this out another day (I have had some problems with the new website)
Regards
Jonathan
We’re looking forward to seeing them live for the first time in March. I’ve loved the stuff I’ve watched on YouTube. Excellent wordsmiths should be supported.
Hi Malcy
I hope you didn’t take my comment as negatively critical of your tabs. They are very useful and must have been a lot of work to publish. It’s just that I watch the video and clips, and am constantly wondering ‘how does he do that?’ Comparisons are, as they say, odious but his chord varieties and progressions make Georges Brassens’ seem quite ordinary.
I’m very glad this topic came up as I went to find the song on YouTube and the BBC video. It’s so powerful, moving and well-crafted. It deserves to be broadcast more. I wondered if Malcy, if you read this on return from your epic Russian email tour, could look again at the chords you worked out for this website. Jake seems to be playing something different – imaginative and faultless as usual.
Interesting snippet from an old (1981) biography of Brassens by Pierre Berruer. (My translation)
“… [through his agent] he received a curious invitation from a Welsh teacher of French, Colin Davis, who used Brassens’s songs for French studies.
He had a lot of invitations of this type. And so as not to upset anyone, Georges felt obliged to refuse them all. But, from the English [sic] – that was unexpected all the same. The matter dragged on a bit and finally in October 1970 he turned up in Cardiff where he was completely surprised to discover his ‘little songs’ were up there with the great classics. This was an aspect of his work which he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – accept”No mention of Jake, however.
Another idea: Google “is there software to notate music from audio?” Several suggestions are made, but I have not tried them.
Good luck in finding this, Dmitry! That’s a lot to ask. May I make one suggestion: if you have Jake on CD, then find a Tascam CD-VT2 (or an older, cheaper version). This ingenious device allows you to slow down the music without lowering the pitch. It’s very useful for learning complicated guitar riffs, for example. If you sit alongside it with a piano or guitar, you should be able to annotate the melodies. It will take a long time!
Hi Malcy
The Black Swan is a good one to learn and has relatively few words to memorise! Its simplicity is deceptive and I find it difficult to get in the “very, very” in the chorus.
As for who the “we” are, I took it to be a bunch of fellow boozers but in the French version he sings about being with his brother.
And the girl? I take it to be simply a younger girl who has left him. Behind the apparent nobility of ‘your life is your own’ is the sexual jealousy of ‘go alone’ and ‘go to bed with a book’. And I take the ‘don’t come and find me’ to mean the opposite. It reflects Jacques Brel’s ‘Ne Me Quitte Pas’.
Regards
Jonathan
