We had joy, we had fun...

 

It was one of the biggest global hits of the seventies. Breaking first in Canada as 1973 drew to a close, it swept across the United States and then spread over the globe to become one of the biggest hits of the decade. Milkmen (remember them?) whistled it and school children lifted their voices to join in the deathless refrain, "We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun...". The song shifted millions of copies around the globe, bringing a fortune to its original creator, a Belgian songsmith who had long since hung up his songwriting pen to pursue, well, seasons in the sun...

Jacques Brel had begun his recording career in 1953 with an underwhelming and commercially unsuccessful 78 rpm release for the Belgian branch of the Philips label (Philips P 19055). Neither "Il y a" nor "La foire" were particularly memorable, but there was something there that caught the ear of Parisian label boss (and chanson champion) Jacques Canetti, who summoned the singer to Paris and offered him a long-term record deal. Brel's first French EP (Philips 432018) surfaced in 1954 but attracted little attention, although Juliette Gréco thought enough of it to cover "Ça va (Le diable)" later in the year (Fontana 460500). 

Brel's early releases were somewhat over earnest, and his first album, 1955's Jacques Brel et ses chansons (Philips 76027) fared no better than his early EPs. However his third EP in 1956 (Philips 432126) housed the forward-looking "Quand on n'a que l'amour" which slow burned in the marketplace for over a year before finally entering the top ten in Music Hall magazine early in 1958. Tours supporting  better-known singers such as Philippe Clay helped him to find an audience, his initially awkward stage performances transforming into emotive, demonstrative showcases as he gained in confidence. Two further albums, 1957's Jacques Brel no. 2 (Philips 76085) and the following year's No. 3 (Philips 76423) saw him consolidating his success, building a catalogue of songs that would soon be recorded by singers from across the musical spectrum, from Simone Langlois to Michèle Arnaud to Jean-Claude Pascal.

By 1959, Brel was one of the fastest rising stars in France and No. 4 (Philips 76483), issued at the end of the year, capped his rise with a stunning set of chansons, many of which ("Ne me qutte pas", "Les Flamandes", "La valse à mille temps") became classics. It was however his next album in 1961 that delivered the song that would, along with "Ne me quitte pas", give him his biggest international payday. No. 5 (Philips 76513) was arguably not as strong as its predecessor, but with Brel's popularity growing with every passing year, it provided him with a major hit with the spinoff EP, headed up by a caustic assault on hypocrisy sung from the persective of a dying man. "Le moribond" was not, by any stretch of the imagination, the stuff from which hits were traditionally made, castigating the clergy and shining a light on marital infidelity while simultaneously thumbing the nose at death itself. However, it had a stirring, uplifting and undeniably catchy melody that helped it to find an audience far beyond the intelligensia to whom its appeal might otherwise have been limited. Buoyed by some dynamic live performances, the record climbed into the top ten (# 6 in Disco Revue, # 9 in Billboard, # 10 in La Discographie Française) and stayed on the charts for the best part of a year.

Brel's star continued to rise through this sixties, with best selling EPs and albums flying out of record stores month after month and live concerts selling out across the country, and even in New York (Carnegie Hall) and London (the Royal Albert Hall). Songs like "Les bourgeois" and "Madeleine" (both 1962), "Mathilde" and "Amsterdam" (1964) and "La chanson des vieux amants" (1967) became standards, and although Brel abandoned live performances in 1967, his final album of the decade (untitled, but often known as J'arrive after its opening track; Barclay 80373) was a massive seller as 1968 turned into 1969. Thereafter Brel abandoned the chanson altogether to attempt a new career as a cinema actor before retiring to the south Pacific islands, leaving his songs to fend for themselves in a changing marketplace.

"Le moribond" had already taken on a life of its own, having been picked up by American singer-poet Rod McKuen who had adapted it into English in the early sixties under the title "Seasons In The Sun". Although the subject matter remained somewhat macabre, the song was picked up by clean cut folkies The Kingston Trio, who cut it for their 1964 LP "Time To Think" (Capitol T 2011). Issued on 45 as the second single from the album, it had the misfortune to surface just as The Beatles were making the Trio redundant, briefly bubbling up to # 111 in Record World before disappearing. 

That might have been the end of the road for the song, although Brel's international reputation continued to grow apace, aided in no small way by the success of the off-Boradway production Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well And Living In Paris, which was built around English-language versions of two dozen of his songs. "Seasons in The Sun" was however not among them, and although a cover by UK outfit The Fortunes made the top ten in The Netherlands in 1968, the song might have remained a jewel known (largely) only to francophones had it not been for the folk-loving Beach Boy, Al Jardine and Canadian singer Terry Jacks.

Jacks had enjoyed a commerical breakthough at the end of the sixties as a member of The Poppy Family, whose "Which Way You Goin' Billy?" skimmed the top of the US charts at the start of 1970. It was presumably this success that brought him into contact with Al Jardine, who had briefly been a folksinger before joining The Beach Boys. Jardine had been the driving force behind the band's recent hit revival of the Leadbelly standard "Cottonfields" and was looking for a new folk song that might serve as a potential follow up. Whether it was Jardine or Jacks who alighted on "Seasons In The Sun" is unknown, but despite the morbid nature of the song, there was undeniably a logic in America's foremost proponents of summer having a crack at a song with a title like that one, so Jacks was hired to produce a version for the band. Not for the last time though, the band decided to change direction and headed out in search of a progressive audience, leaving Jacks' work on the studio floor, with the finished product remaining unreleased until it finally surfaced on 2021's "Feel Flows" boxed set.

Listening to it now, it is perhaps not hard to see why it remained unreleased, although with a little more work it might well have given the band a hit. Jacks however remained convinced of the song's potential and with The Poppy Family headed for the history books, in 1973 he set about recording his own version of the song. Retaining, more or less, The Beach Boys' arrangement (and, to my ears, maybe even part of the backing track too), he took the liberty of toning down the lyric, divesting it of much of Brel's acerbic intent and substituing (uncredited) new lyrics that offered a more anodyne and perhaps universal sentimentality that guaranteed that the song would fnd a receptive audience on Canadian radio. And so it proved... 

Issued on the Goldfish label (GS 101), the song hit # 1 in Canada and then, licensed to Bell Records in American (Bell 45432) began its conquest of the globe, topping the charts in both the UK and the US (despite competition from a version by country singer Bobby Wright), and doing the same in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Sweden and Switzerland, contenting itself with various top ten placings in the rest of the world. For the first half of 1974, wherever you went, the song was utterly inescapable, selling millions and getting under the skin of the pop audience all over the world. 

Jacks would go on to record a version of Brel's "Ne me quitte pas" ("If You Go Away") as his follow up single and continued to record for several years, without ever finding the same success again. Brel would be himself be tempted out of retirement in 1977, releasing a final album Brel (Barclay 96010) before his tragically early death from cancer in 1978. He remains a touchstone of la chanson française, his albums remain in print and his songs continue to be covered with regularity by artists around the globe. As for "Seasons In The Sun", Jacks' smash hit has gone down in history as both one of the most loved and one of the most loathed songs of the decade, but its appeal remains undeniable. It has been recorded by artists as diverse as Nana Mouskouri and Nirvana , while Irish boy band took it back to # 1 in the UK in 1999. And yet, it has to be said... nobody ever sang it as well as Brel did himself...

You can read more about Jacques Brel - and much more besides - in my newly-released book. Feel free to grab a copy here: BOOK