Jacques BREL – Autograph manuscript. “The Song of the Old Lovers”. 1967.

Jacques Brel (1929.1978)

Autograph manuscript – The Song of the Old Lovers.

A quarto page on the back of a printed sheet from a recording studio.

[January 1967]

Of course, we had thunderstorms.

Twenty years of love, that's crazy love.

Final manuscript of this emblematic song, a true hymn to eternal love, created by Jacques Brel in the winter of 1966 and co-composed with his pianist Gérard Jouannest.

This is undoubtedly the sheet of paper that Brel held in his hand during the recording of the song at the Barclay studio in Paris in January 1967. The text, composed of thirty octosyllabic lines forming three verses, is transcribed here in its entirety with the position of the refrain indicated by the letter R.

This song, which has become legendary, was one of the last sung in public by Brel, before his farewell to the stage a few months later, in May 1967.

__________________________________________________________

Of course, we had thunderstorms.

Twenty years of love, that's crazy love.
1000 times you packed your bags
, 1000 times I took flight.

And every piece of furniture remembers
In this room without a cradle
The echoes of old storms
Nothing resembled anything anymore
You had lost the taste of water
And I, that of conquest.

-R

I know all your spells
You know all my enchantments
You kept me from trap to trap
I lost you from time to time.

 Of course you took a few lovers,
you had to pass the time
somehow, the body had to exult,
but in the end, in the end,
it took a lot of talent for us
to grow old without being adults.

-R

And time makes our procession
, and time makes our torment.

But isn't the worst trap
  for lovers to live in peace?

Of course you cry a little less early,
I tear myself apart a little later.
We protect our secrets less,
we leave less to chance,
we distrust the flow of the water.
But it's still a tender war.

__________________________________________________________

Provenance: Jacques Brel sale, Sotheby's, October 8, 2008, lot 25.

Bibliography:

Jacques Brel, The Complete Works . Robert Laffont.

Jacques Brel, a life. O. Todd. Robert Laffont

Jacques Brel. Jean Clouzet. Seghers.