Ne me quitte pas - Jacques Brel - New English Translation

I have combined the earliest video version of this song (1959) with simply the best English translation of the lyrics - my own.

This is a work in progress as I keep adding internal rhymes and aiming for external rhymes. What started out as a literal translation has been refined into a syllable-for-syllable translation and is becoming more and more a singable English version. I will stop short of making an adaptation... That would be too easy.

Please don't go away
We must forget all
We can forget all
That's already past
Let's forget the times
We misunderstood
And the times we stood
Just wondering how
Let's forget the hours
Of wondering why
That poisoned our lives
And our happy ways
Please don't go away (4 times)

But I can offer you
Pearls made out of rain
Brought from far-off climes
Where it doesn't rain
I can dig the earth
Until past my death
Just to make you shine
In both gold and light
I'll found a domain
Where love shall be might
Where love shall be right
And only you will reign
Please don't go away (4 times)

Please don't go away
I'll invent for you
Words devoid of sense
Words you'll understand
I will tell about
Those great lovers two
Who saw both their hearts
Flower all anew
I will tell about
That unhappy king
Who... simply died
From never meeting you
Please don't go away (4 times)

You will often see
Fiery flames arise
From a mountainside
That was thought extinct
I heard tell of soils
Scorched though they may be
Bearing much more wheat
Than the best of springs
And in evening haze
If night didn't wed
With a sky of red
Would sunset even blaze?
Please don't go away (4 times)

Please don't go away
I won't weep again
I won't speak again
I will simply hide
Just to watch you dance
Just to watch you smile
Just to listen to
You sing and laugh
Just let me become
Shadow in the fog
Shadow of your hand
Shadow of your dog
Please don't go away
Please don't go away
Please don't go away
Please don't go away

© 2008 Benoit Racine

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Jacques
• Brel
• english
• subtitles
• translation
• lyrics
• Ne
• me
• quitte
• pas

[supernole100]

He has a very odd torso that is not very proportionate to his head. But this song is great.

[baracine]

@supernole100

What a perfectly idiotic thing to say. But your judgement is correct.

[angelialvares]

Baraccine, maybe since you translate from english to french, your english might be a bit deficient to allow you to delve into the deeper meanings implied by Jacques Brel. Analysis is the personal interpretation of an individual.When one translates a song, analysis is essential as a song requires meter and rhyme and a poetic element to entrance or excite the listener. .

[baracine]

@angelialvares

I'm willing to bet my English is better than your French. In translating from the French, the first order of business is to understand and analyze the French, which you obviously haven't done. That sentence only has ONE meaning: If red and black can marry, why can't we? And "analysis" doesn't mean "permission to improvise in any direction one fancies". I feel I have provide meter, rhyme and a poetic element. I'm sorry you don't like it.

[blaaskat]

Jacques Brel stated later in an interview that this song is not a love song, but rather a song about the cowardice of men. All these extreme emotions in desperate times make us feel we are alive, and in that sense it is a reality we should embrace and learn from.

[TickleMaTurkey]

@blaaskat Dont believe everything by people who thrive on publicity. e.g. "The Transporter" Director Louis Leterrier said that Frank Martin is "the first gay action movie hero", ssaying the character comes out when he refuses a woman's advances saying, It's because of who I am.However,its at odds with Frank's heterosexual relationships in the first and third films, and his explicit statement in the third that he is not gay When asked about it Statham said it as Lois was just winding me up

[TickleMaTurkey]

@baracine No its not. Its the style of the jacket. If you look close his shoulders finish about 3" short of the shoulders under the jacket. It a bit like an American Zoot Suit .................. just a bit

[GlorioMundi]

UNFORGETTABLE .......! *

[HaydeeF1]

@supernole100 It is not his torso, he is wearing a jacket that is too big for him.

[marcusletiss]

how about ...

don't leave me, don't go

don't leave me, don't go

don't leave me, don't go

[beijingalchemists]

Sorry but I think your translation is not as good as the other version posted on Youtube which is simpler and more emotionally direct and powerful, which is also the strength of the song. Writing good poetry or translations is not just about creating verbal symmetry or supposedly "poetic phrases", e.g. your sub-Byronic "far off climes", but about moving the reader.

[TheOneandOnlyMartha]

@blaasket: Thanks so much for sharing that...I've always felt that this song was not so much about love rather than it was about desparation or serious loneliness. Whatever, I don't so much care as long as I can hear Jacques Brel sing it to me. He is so sublime, I wish all Americans could understand the emotions that come with every phrasing of this song. It is truly beyond........

[TTFLS]

Loooooooooooooooooooool what a crappy translation! Luckily Europeans, unlike retarded yanks, do understand the difference between a translation and a fatso eating a hamburger with dollars from robbed countries while being retarded because of laughable education system and retarded fake democracy, translation...

Seriously, this is a McDonalds translation, please look for another vid, the translator is raping our history, even worse then Spielberg's remake of Indiana Jones...!!!

[michikotanaka81]

dont give up on me