Alain Bashung sings Jacques Brel Tango Funèbre French & English Subtitles

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Anglophones will recognize this song as "Funeral Tango" from Scott Walker or the musical " Jacques Brel is Alive and Living in Paris", the Mort Shuman/Eric Blau English adaptations. This is the 1964 French original, covered as a reading with a lush musical accompaniment by French singer/songwriter Alain Bashung. Brel imagines attending his own funeral, He experiences the falseness of his friends and family, the finality and harshness of death, decides to put prudence aside and seize the day. Note that this is a funeral "tango," not a funeral march. Brel had written in Le Moribond, (The Dying Man) three years earlier, "Et, je veux quo'on rie, je veux qu'on danse, je veux qu'on s'amuse comme des fous....quand c'est qu'on me mettra dans le trou" ( I want them to laugh, dance, have fun like crazies... when they put me in the hole" continues the dark irony with Tango Funèbre. Bashung's interpretation adds a scary, lugubrious element. Both Brel and Bashung were great French chansonniers who died of lung cancer, most likely from tobacco. Images alternate between the two artists.I hear strains of George Martin Beatles in the background. From the CD "Aux Suivants," Thanks to philipchek for help with the translation and info about Bashung whom most Americans do not know.
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Jacques Brel
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