Jacques Brel is Alive and Here

What I listen to usually tells me how I am feeling and what I might be thinking. For almost four days now—during this week of the impeachment trial of Trump-- I have played the music of Jacques Brel. I had learned about Brel sometimes in the late 1960s when I took Renee to the Village production of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. Later, Judy Collins sang “Sons of” and “Marieke” on albums I owned.  This week via Alexa I’ve played Jacques Brel in his original French, though I do not speak French even a little fluently; listened to the original cast recording from 1968, and the later revival dating from 2016. Since I have over the years listened occasionally to the 1968 recording, I understood much of Brel’s original.

     Why Brel now?  The cynicism that drips from his lyrics seems appropriate to the time. In the White House sits a criminal, a misogynist, an anti-Semitic would-be King, and the news I hate to follow reports that the Republicans will exonerate him of all misdeeds though they have to know that he is guilty as hell is hot. Worse, I fear his re-election and the final loss of our democracy. Cynicism expresses disillusionment, disenchantment, a belief that deeds are effected by selfish self-interest at the expense of honest value; a disbelief in human sincerity and goodness.

     If you are at all appalled by the Republican Party; if you are at all terrified by the man in the White House; if you are concerned for our democracy; listen to Jacques Brel. He does not offer solace, but he will, like homeopathic tinctures, relieve some of the horrible pain of the times. Though the final song of the album and the production, “If we only have love” seems a prayer and I cling to it as an only hope. Though I have little faith.