For a singer born in Brussels, writing in this way about Paris is like a spell. Especially since Jacques Brel never really liked Paris, too much hassle in his early days, too many shabby hotels in Pigalle, too many rabid cows, too much indifference from the bourgeois patrons of cabarets: the three Baudets or the Lock Quai des Grands Augustins.
“The first names of Paris”, the song, is one of Jacques Brel’s first great hits. He writes the text of course and the music is signed Gérard Jouannest, who will become the husband of Juliette Gréco. From the end of the 1950s, Brel triumphed on all stages and if Paris made his success, he lived there only two months of the year.
1978, after a life of patachon, Brel leaves the Marquesas and returns to Paris. He records a last album, the cover of the LP is sky blue. It’s the last trip, the last dreams, the last airport.
Jacques Brel dies at 49 in a hospital in Bobigny, leaving an indelible imprint in French song. The first names of Paris run, run and even if the love stories end badly, it doesn’t matter, we will have lived this song at 300 miles an hour, like when the singer flew over the Marquise Islands on board his twin-engine air taxi.