Please don't go

Ne me quitte pas, by Jacques Brel is in my humble opinion one of the most beautiful love songs of all time. Even if you do not understand the French, you cannot escape being touched by the truly heartfelt sentiment.

Brel is imploring the object of his desire not to finish the relationship. The heartbreak is so strongly expressed, that it is almost tangible enough to reach out and touch it.

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For a full translation, you can check out the following link.

English Translation of Ne Me Quitte Pas - Jamie J Brunson WordPress.com https://jamiejbrunson.wordpress.com › english-translat...

Here is a transcript of the first verse by Jamie J. Brunson.

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Please don’t leave me.

We can forget

Everything can be forgotten

Look, it’s gone already

Forget the times

And the misunderstandings

The lost time

The blows

The hours that robbed our hearts of joy

Don’t leave me (4 times).

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Brel himself was a little disparaging of the song when he said that it was about a weak man, a coward. That may well be, but it resonates very much with me and my post-divorce period, twice over. Maybe we only value something when we are on the verge of losing it. And if that makes me a weak, coward of a man, so be it.

Perhaps what Brel meant was that a breakup and the rejection it entails is when a man is at his weakest. All of his power and strength are invested in the woman he loves. His perception, opinion, and valuation of himself are tied up in what the woman thinks of him. And if those things are rejected, then he is reduced to nothing, which tears his whole sense of validation as a man and a lover to shreds. In doing this, the man loses all of his power and strength. All he can do is beg for mercy and cry.

For a man at this point in his life, this spells the end of not only his relationship but also of his life. Therefore, he is fighting with nothing more nor less than pure, raw emotion, trying to cling to the only thing that matters to him. I am sad to say that it is a dark, dark period I am all too familiar with. And at that time, I simply wanted to die.

In the above video, Brel's delivery is amazing. He comes across as being very much at the point of tears. His expression of his deeply felt emotions is nothing less than totally and utterly moving. You can feel his emotional pain as if it is you who is going through that trauma. That is the mark of a genius artist of the highest caliber. To reach out and touch in such a way is truly beyond artistry, it is heavenly.

Sadly Brel died very young, but he left a catalogue of beautiful songs that rank among the best you will hear, ever.

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To end on a brighter-sounding note, J'arrive is a song in which Brel sings with triumphant joy about arriving. The orchestration of this song is truly gorgeous, with the wind and string instruments giving such wonderful expression to the joys of arriving, even if it means arriving late.

He expresses the desire to enjoy more than simply arriving as lasting love seems to have eluded him. He wants to give it one more try, if only the other party is willing. The lyrics seem to suggest that she is not willing in the least. Hence the sense of frustration in the last line, "I arrive." or in French, "J'arrive.