What counts in a life


'Ce qui compte dans une vie, c'est l'intensité d'une vie, pas la dureé d'une vie.'
The photo shows what Jacques Brel meant when he said 'What counts in a life is its intensity, not its duration'. It comes from the sleeve of the CD compilation Brel infiniment. 2009 is the 80th anniversary of Jacques Brel's birth. He died in 1978 aged 49, and is buried on the French Polynesian island of Hiva Oa close to the grave of Paul Gauguin.

Jacques Brel's songs have been performed by an astonishing range of artists from Dave van Ronk through Frank Sinatra and The Kingston Trio to contemporary rock band Beirut. There is even a CD titled Classic French Songs that puts him alongside Debussy, Duparc, and Fauré and the lesser known but very interesting Jean Ferrat. More on Jacques Brel here.

Brel infinement was bought from Leclerc in St Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, France. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Pliable said…
Strange - when I was putting this post together I thought of how that could be Glenn Gould in the photo.

I checked, Glenn Gould was just a few months older than Jacques Brel when he died.
3:01 pm
jcwindex said…
And don't forget perhaps the greatest Brel interpreter of all, Scott Walker!
4:57 pm
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