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 sin...