Jacques BREL – “Next!” Extraordinary working manuscript.

Jacques Brel (1929.1978)

Autograph manuscript – Next.  

Two octavo pages written in red and blue ink.

[1964]

Completely naked except for my towel which served as a loincloth

My forehead was flushed, and I had soap in my hand.

Next!

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An extraordinary working manuscript, a first draft, of this mythical song inspired by Jacques Brel's military experience during his twentieth year.

The document, which was extensively corrected, was written in two stages: the body of the text was first written in red pen and then revised and completed later in blue ink. During this second phase of writing, Jacques Brel made essential changes, including the famous introductory lines on which the artist still stumbles: " Completely naked in my towel tied as a loincloth / Red on my forehead, soap in my hand…" .

The manuscript, which allows us to follow the artist's creative process, reveals unpublished, unpreserved verses, such as the one evoking the adjutant's voice "rolling a Provençal accent in his moustache" or this analytical thought on the tragic nature of the situation: " it started badly, it can't end well. "

I was just 20 years old [and there I was, finishing up] and I was losing my virginity

At the army's mobile brothel in the field.

A true masterpiece of dramatic storytelling, Jacques Brel inscribes, through these lines and in light of his distrust of the military, the tragedy of the absurd, of grotesque dehumanization and of the pathetic.

I swear on the head of my firstborn son

I've been hearing that voice all the time ever since.

Next!

Next!

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Brel and the army. The artist, as if to be done with the army as soon as possible, anticipated his military call-up and began his basic training on June 1, ¹⁹⁴⁸ , in Limburg, at the age of 19, before being assigned to an aviation regiment in the northern suburbs of Brussels under the service number A-48-2567. In the aftermath of the horrors of war, the young Brel did not enjoy the hours spent in the barracks and considered the existence of a Belgian army to be absurd.

From then on, in addition to Au suivant , he did not fail to criticize the military caste in several of his songs such as Le Caporal Casse-Pompon (“My friend is a sure value – Who often says without pretension – That by the thinness of the peelings – We see the greatness of nations”) or La Colombe (“Why this fanfare – When the soldiers in fours – Await the massacres – On the platform of a station”).

Jacques Brel was finally released from his military obligations on June 1, 1949, a few weeks after celebrating his twentieth birthday.

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Provenance: Jacques Brel sale, Sotheby's, October 8, 2008, lot 11.

Bibliography:

Jacques Brel,  The Complete Works . pp.287-288. Robert Laffont.

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

Jacques Brel. Jean Clouzet. Seghers.