This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Translation Studies,

available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14781700.2015.1011220

If you are interested in quoting it, please refer to the published version.

Scott Walker sings Jacques Brel: Translation, authorship and the circulation of music

Fruela Fernández*

School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, University of Hull, UK

*Email: f.fernandez@hull.ac.uk

By focusing on a set of Jacques Brel's songs as covered in English by the American

singer Scott Walker, this article addresses the complexity of the production and

circulation of cultural products, uncovering the important yet frequently obscured role

of a range of agents. Combining approaches from sociology and cultural studies, it

examines the ways in which “Brel” was integrated within Walker's work and artistic

persona and this in turn exemplifies how an imported product can become the object

of new strategic uses in the field of reception. The article also addresses the multiple

operations involved in this process, which are not limited to textual translation, but

include further discursive and non-textual practices. Finally, issues of reception and

authorship are raised to show how the study of translation can become an exploratory

tool in historical and cultural analysis.

Keywords: cover songs; international circulation of cultural products; sociology of

translation; translation of music; reception.

The Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel (1929-1978) has been described as “a legendary

figure in chanson”, “a mythical figure who influenced a whole generation of admirers” and

1
whose “recordings and live performances [...] surpass anything his precursors were able to

achieve” (Hawkins 2000, 137). While his status in Francophone culture is clearly defined,

Brel has been the object of a more complex reception in Britain, conditioned to an important

extent by the work of the American singer Scott Walker (b. 1943). According to music

journalist Graeme Thomson, Brel's influence in contemporary British music has been largely

mediatized by Walker, “whose obsession with Brel in the late 1960s tends to dominate

discussions about the chansonnier, with largely obfuscatory results” (Thomson 2009).

Walker started his career as a member of the Walker Brothers, a band which, at the

height of their fame, had a higher number of fan club subscriptions than the Beatles and the

Rolling Stones (Reynolds 2009, 134). In 1967 Walker started a solo career with a repertoire

consisting of both self-penned songs and cover versions; his adaptations of Jacques Brel’s

music would play a key role in his development. Although Walker’s interest in Brel’s work

was limited to his early years as a solo singer, the centrality of these covers in shaping Brel's

British reception has been so notable that, for many listeners, both artists have become

inextricably interwoven. Indeed, numerous contemporary artists who acknowledge Brel's

influence — such as David Bowie or Jarvis Cocker — have also expressed their admiration

for Walker as a performer and “importer” (for instance in the documentary Scott Walker. 30

Century Man: Kijak 2006).

This article examines the importance of Jacques Brel as a translated and incorporated

element within Scott Walker's solo work, most notably in his first three albums — Scott

(1967), Scott 2 (1968) and Scott 3 (1969) — within which Walker covered nine of Brel’s

songs. Although Brel had occasionally been covered in English before Walker, and would

later be covered extensively (Tinker 2005) by artists as disparate as Frank Sinatra, David

Bowie and Tom Jones, the particularity of Walker's approach resides not only in this

consistency, but also in the extent to which he made Brel a core element of his emerging
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figure as a solo artist. Beyond the effect of artistic self-assertion that covering Brel’s music

provided in Walker's evolution from a “reluctant pop idol” in the 1960s to the so-called avant-

garde artist of the 1990s (Williams 2006, 9), it also functioned as a self-critique. As such, my

analysis will highlight the ways in which Walker mobilized Brel's songs to construct his own

artistic persona, and how these covers and the discourse surrounding them can shed some

light upon Walker's uncomfortable position within the star system of his time.

Rather than focusing exclusively on evaluating the translated lyrics, this article is

predominantly concerned with the function of the cover songs within their artistic setting.

Therefore, a variety of sources — including "extratextual materials", i.e. the discourse

surrounding translation and translated texts (Toury 1995, 65–67; Tahir-Gürçağlar 2002) —

will be combined to produce a historical contextualisation. There are two reasons for this

approach: firstly, songs are plurisemiotic artefacts (Kaindl 2005) made up of both textual and

non-textual elements, such as music, image or performance. Thus, the translation of songs

involves a tension between the importance accorded to the text and that accorded to the music

— between a logocentric and a musicocentric penchant, to use Gorlée's terminology (1997,

239). The study of translated music also requires a multidisciplinary approach (Susam-

Sarajeva 2008, 189) since the non-textual elements are as relevant as the textual when

attempting to understand the function of the translation. Secondly, the lyrics sung by Scott

Walker, most of which were translated by the American musician Mort Shuman, have been

assessed in traditional terms of “accuracy” by journalists, musicologists and scholars

(Williams 2006, 60-86; Thomson 2009; Low 2013; Wood 2013,109-128); my reading will, on

the contrary, seek to underline the specific strategies, deviations and shifts that are indicative

of a wider ideological context. The key element in my interpretation of Walker's persona is

not the adequacy of the translations, but rather “Brel” as a construct with a variety of

functions.
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 My approach combines contributions from translation studies, sociology and cultural

studies to position the function of the translations in a social context. Just like any other

cultural good, a translated text “circulates without its context” (Bourdieu 2009) as the

imported product sheds the field of production that has shaped it. Therefore, its sense and

meaning are determined by the new field of reception, as the displaced product is

“accommodated” and “transformed” by its new uses and its new position (Said 1983, 226-

227). The decontextualization and recontextualization of the product make it the object of

new strategic functions, which need to be understood within the historical structure of the

receiving culture, its balance of power, the existing debates and oppositions or the different

roles and challenges of the importers (Even-Zohar 1978; Toury 1980; Lefevere 1992).

Recalling Even-Zohar's opposition between “primary” and “secondary” products of a system

(Even-Zohar 1978, 1990), my analysis will highlight how the introduction of new elements in

a cultural repertoire aims to destabilize it and, as a result, to make its products “less

predictable”. At the same time, this article will also exemplify how the study of translation

can be a means of providing new insights into a historical context (St-Pierre 1993), while

developing a critique of culturally established notions, such as authorship (Venuti 1998, 31-

46).

Scott Walker within the 1960s music industry

Traditionally, popular music has played an important role in the “narrativization of place”

(how people “define their relationship to local, everyday surroundings”), as well as being

crucial in the “articulation of notions of community and collective identity” (Bennett 2004, 2-

3). With the evolution of radio, film and television in the 1950s, the dialectics of identity and

music became more complex: on the one hand, the expansion of Anglo-Saxon (mostly

American) music genres led to the decline of various forms of indigenous music (Connell &
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Gibson 2003, 54-56); on the other, different local genres appeared as a reaction to this cultural

domination, leading to new forms of music that imply “a critique of international

entertainment” (Frith 1989, 2).

The emergence of the contemporary popular music system, dominated by Anglo-

Saxon products, cannot be disentangled from the expansion of the post-war consumerist

society and the rearticulation of a particular social category — the “youth”. The Western

generation of baby boomers — those born between 1946 and 1964 — opened an entirely new

market for popular culture (Grossberg 1992, 171-181) that subsequently brought about a

redefinition of the aims and the content of cultural products and, logically, of cultural

producers. Music stars had been an important element of consumerist society since its early

development in the 1940s, as their association with certain products and their embodiment of

certain characteristics was decisive in the process of promoting and “organizing

consumption” (Buxton 1990, 431-432). Subsequently, with the emergence of the “young”

public, the function of these stars had to be adapted accordingly; Scott Walker was one such

star whose image and function were shaped by this emerging system.

Noel Scott Engel — the future Scott Walker — was born in Ohio in 1943, just a few

years before the baby boom. After a brief career as a child star, he joined the Walker Brothers

and started playing at night clubs in the Hollywood area. The band achieved commercial

success in the mid-1960s after relocating to Britain and signing to the multinational label

Philips, who began promoting them for a predominantly teenage market (Reynolds 2009, 54-

68; Wood 2013, 40-57). Yet as their fame grew, Walker became increasingly disenchanted

with his function as a teenage icon and the cult following of mass stardom. As with

Beatlemania, the Walker Brothers’ live shows abounded in scenes of teenage distress.

According to Walker, the level of high-pitched screams would make it impossible for both

performers and listeners to hear the music and, on extreme occasions, shows would be
5
concluded after just a few minutes due to stage invasions (Kijak 2006). The audience’s

expressions of desire would frequently result in violence; the three Brothers often had their

shirts ripped off and detailed plans had to be made for them to leave venues unharmed after

shows (Reynolds 2009, 107-111). At the height of “Walkermania”, Scott Walker manifested

progressive signs of anxiety and often expressed concerns about how his star image was

affecting his privacy.1 His uncomfortable behaviour created further problems with the rest of

the band and has been identified as an important reason for the Walker Brothers’ eventual

break-up in 1967 (Reynolds 2009, 145-155; Woods 2013, 72-82).

(Dis)covering Brel

A star has been defined as a “media sign”, a socially constructed persona (Stringer 1992, 15-

17). This implies that no research is able to, or should even attempt to, uncover the “real”

individual behind the star as even the most apparently “personal” findings on an artist need to

be analysed as part of their star image. Performers' declarations and “confessions” should not

be taken at face value, but rather as elements of a personal narrative, of a “biographical

illusion” that aims at making sense of a variety of choices and events (Bourdieu 1986).

Moreover, the socially constructed character of a star also implies that “stars live out social

contradiction” (Stringer 1992, 15-17): each star is read and interpreted differently according

to the conflicting demands made by different audiences with different needs (Wise 1990).

The discourse surrounding Scott Walker's early career was frequently focused upon

his appearance and his voice: “[Scott Walker ] has a fine range, good vocal control […] Scott

is a product of the Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra and Andy Williams school” (Altham 1966b);

“[L]ife isn't always easy for a good looking, talented, intelligent pop idol” (Welch 1968);

“[t]here was no doubt that he had the most exquisite voice, and he was obviously a very

handsome guy” (Herbie Flowers, bass player, apud Cavanagh 2013, 87). During public
6
appearances, Walker expressed his reluctance to accept these descriptions as well as further

comparisons with other popular contemporary singers and crooners (Watkinson & Anderson

1994, 58-59, 115; Cavanagh 2013, 87).2 As the journalist Keith Altham pointed out in the

sleeve notes to a Walker Brothers' album, Scott Walker “desperately wanted recognition for

his work and not for his image” (Walker Brothers 1968). In this sense, Walker needed a

different narrative as a solo artist, one aimed at counteracting the impact of mainstream

readings of his star image, and Jacques Brel would play an important role in shaping that

narrative.

The impact of this decision is clearly visible in the various accounts Walker gave of

how he discovered Brel's music. In 1967, a few months before releasing his first solo record

(Scott), which included his first three Brel covers, Walker explained to a music magazine how

“it was one of the happiest days of my life when a girlfriend gave me the first English

translations I'd seen of Brel's lyrics” (Watkinson & Anderson 1994, 112). At this stage of

Walker's career, the mythologized girlfriend added an element of mystery to his musical

discovery but also came at the expense of the actual translator of Brel's lyrics, the American

musician Mort Shuman (1936-1991). Only shortly before the album’s release did Walker

publicly acknowledge the adaptor's work, stating in an interview that “[t]he translations are as

close to the original as Schuman [sic] could get and I stand by them” (Altham 1967a).

Interestingly, Walker's ability to assess the accuracy of the lyrics related back to the figure of

the unknown girl, as he would admit to a journalist that although he did not speak French, “he

had a German girlfriend who used to translate Brel's work for him” (Altham 1967b).

Walker's romanticized narrative obscured an important element of the production

process, however, as it neglected the issue of how he made the leap from the lyrics “translated

by a girlfriend” to Shuman's adaptations. In fact, as Walker himself would explain much later

in two documentaries (BBC 1995, Kijak 2006), he actually received the translations via
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Andrew Loog Oldham, manager of the Rolling Stones and the business partner of music

impresario Tony Calder, who was interested in Walker's work and had tried to sign him as a

solo artist (Reynolds 2009, 173-174):

I mentioned him [sic] that [i.e. having listened to Jacques Brel], and he [Loog

Oldham] said, "It's funny you should mention that, 'cause I've got some translations

coming from the States", and he played some rough demo versions of these

translations... They were in English, of course, these translations. And I said, "That's

great. Can I do them? Is it possible?" And he said: "Sure, I don't see why not, nobody

else is doing them" (BBC 1995).

It can be seen within this extended context how Walker's framing of his Brel discovery exerts

a double function. Firstly, it foregrounds the encounter and turns it into a decisive event in the

narrative of his career: “I immediately took them [the translations] and within a week I set up

a session and covered them. I knew that was the lock for my first album, and that was the key.

That really unlocked my whole imagination” (BBC 1995). Secondly, it aims at asserting

Walker's role as a “forerunner” in the introduction of Brel, minimizing Mort Shuman's role —

not mentioning, for instance, that Shuman had approached Brel in 1966 to start working on

the covers (Przybylski 2008, 422-424) — and his later production, most notably Jacques Brel

is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, the 1968 off-Broadway musical he would create with

the lyricist Eric Blau: “That [i.e. Walker's discovery of Brel] was before this Jacques Brel is

Alive & Well show and all that sorta thing went on” (BBC 1995).

Accommodating Brel

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In Walker's early solo career, “Brel” would operate as a construct of cover versions and

surrounding discourse that acquired a special significance in the development and progressive

complexity of Walker's star image, woven between the demands of his mainstream following

and his own claims to artistic independence. It is evident that Jacques Brel had an important

role in the construction of Walker's European persona. In the mid-1960s, Brel was sufficiently

distant and yet sufficiently familiar to constitute a source of cultural capital: in spite of his

pivotal status within French chanson, Brel was still an outsider to the Anglo-Saxon

mainstream market; however, the success of his live performances around the world and,

most notably, a relatively “lukewarm” appearance at the Royal Albert Hall (Przybylski 2008,

417) had introduced him to less commercial audiences in Britain. Additionally, Brel was

coherent with Walker's set of European cultural references, which started emerging during his

years with the Walker Brothers: in the sleeve notes of their second British album, Portrait, for

example, Scott was defined as “the Existentialist who knows what it [sic] means and reads

Sartre” (Walker Brothers 1966). This attraction to European culture would be exemplified

further in his solo career through references to Ingmar Bergman and Albert Camus.3 Paired

with his disavowal of the United States,4 Walker's fascination with Jacques Brel fitted into a

narrative of Europeanness and displacement that would elicit regular comments from

journalists: as a BBC presenter approvingly remarked, “here's an American guy, lives in

Europe, and he really digs a Frenchman [sic]” (Reynolds 2009, 246).

Nonetheless, Brel's main influence upon Walker would be thematic. In a musical

context dominated by standardized “pop fare” and “love and peace songs” (Williams 2006,

61), the introduction of Brel in Walker's repertoire was as enriching as it was destabilizing.

The majority of the nine Brel covers on Walker's first three solo albums addressed topics that

were overtly conflictual for the mainstream music of the day, from death and the passing of

time —“My Death” ("La mort"), “Funeral tango” ("Le tango funèbre", “Sons of” ("Fils
9
de")— to violent love affairs —“Mathilde”—, prostitution —“Next” ("Au suivant"),

“Amsterdam”— and the parody of fame (“Jackie”/"La chanson de Jacky"). Revealingly,

Walker's self-penned songs in that period showed a similar intent to focus on infrequently-

tackled issues, such as prostitution (“The Girls from the Streets”) and transvestism (“Big

Louise”). During Walker's first solo period (1967-1969), such a range of topics was only

addressed in the Anglo-Saxon music system by non-commercial, independent bands with a

marginal presence in the charts, like The Velvet Underground with their forthright numbers

on drugs, prostitution and homosexuality (Witts 2006, 45-47, 128-129).

Walker clearly foregrounded this thematic dissonance from the start of his solo career.

In his first TV appearance (6 August 1967), on the Billy Cotton Band Show — a traditional

and family-friendly BBC programme (Altham 1967b) — Walker introduced his cover of

Brel's “La mort” (“My Death”) in a manner that was in notable contrast to the style of the

show:

I have an album that is released tomorrow, and on it is a very, very marvellous

song by a person that I idolize very much, named Jacques Brel, and this song

deals with death and his aspects of it [sic] — he laughs at it, drinks at it and sleeps

with it. I hope you like it. (Williams 2006, 65).

In his second TV appearance on The Dusty Springfield TV Show (September 1967), Walker

performed a new Brel cover, “Mathilde”, which dealt with (in Walker's words) “a

sadomasochistic love affair” (Williams 2006, 62). This reliance on Brel's work for his

presentation as a solo singer was consistent with the structure of Walker's first album, Scott

(Walker 1967). Although the sleeve notes insisted upon Walker's independence from his past

with the Walker Brothers (“'Solo' should have been this artist's middle name”), only three
10
numbers were written by Walker; the majority of the repertoire was made up of “middle-of-

the-road” songs popularised by American swing artists, crooners and teen idols, such as Tony

Bennett, Gene Pitney and Bobby Darin. Within this context Brel's cover songs became even

more prominent from a creative perspective, since they were not only thematically dissonant,

but also formed the album's backbone: “Mathilde” opened the A-side, which was closed by

“My Death”, while “Amsterdam” was the final song of the B-side and of the whole record.

At the end of 1967, this pairing of Brel's work and Walker's artistic self-presentation

emerged once again with the release of a single from his planned second album: “Jackie”, a

cover of Brel's “La chanson de Jacky”. The song’s ironic yet overt references to sexuality and

drugs were received negatively: some BBC listeners accused it of being a “nasty song” and

the corporation subsequently refused to air it on radio or TV during the daytime (Watkinson

& Anderson 1994, 119-120). Although this controversy led to the cancellation of a number of

TV appearances and to negative reactions from Walker's label,5 Brel would still be a key

reference in Scott 2 (1968), which included four songs written by Walker and three Brel

covers, and Scott 3 (1969a), where all compositions were written by Walker except for

another three Brel songs.

With this in mind, it is important to assess how the translated lyrics reworked Brel's

themes , and more specifically those that could cause thematic dissonance after the

accommodation of the songs in a new context. A coherent approach to this analysis would

thus focus on the potentially conflictual lexis of the songs, a feature that would have been

most evident to their audience. Shortly before Scott's release, a journalist had already pointed

out how the Brel songs translated by Shuman were “likely to cause a storm of controversy due

to the basic language”; this lexical choice of the adaptor was supported by Walker himself,

who explained how the track “Amsterdam” “concerns the sailors of that port and […] is a

story told in their language” (Altham 1967a).6 Recalling Blum-Kulka's discussion of

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translation shifts (Blum-Kulka 2000), it can be argued that the translations tend to highlight

what Brel “says”, making the controversial language “obvious and clear” and even

occasionally overemphasising it, while the translated lyrics tend to differ more intensely in

terms of what Brel “means”, as these suggestions and ideological layers become “vague and

obscure” (Blum-Kulka 2000, 312).

On the first level of analysis, the translations contain a set of vividly coarse

constructions which certainly diverged from the standard language of 60s pop: for instance, a

“procurer of young girls” (“gouverneur de tripot”) who sells “boats of opium” (“bateaux

d'opium”) and “phoney virgins” (“fausses vierges”) is mentioned in “Jackie”, a parody of

music stardom in which the main character is described as being “cute, cute in a stupid-ass

way” (“Beau, beau, beau et con à la fois” [handsome [...] and stupid at the same time]). In

other cases, Shuman's translations further elaborate Brel's verses, making the controversy

more explicit. In “Mathilde”, the suggested violence of “Et vous mes mains, ne frappez pas”

[and you, my hands, do not hit] is turned into an overt “You'll want to beat her black and

blue”. The calm approach to death in “La Mort”  “La mort attend que mes amis / Me

viennent voir en pleine nuit / Pour mieux se dire que le temps passe” [Death waits until my

friends / come to see me late at night / to reflect more clearly on how time passes]  acquires

a celebratory tone in “My Death”: “My death waits / To allow my friends / A few good times

before it ends / Let's drink to that / And the passing time”.

Shuman's version of “Au Suivant” — “Next” on Scott 2 (1968) — is arguably the best

example of shifts made at the level of suggested meaning, as it shows how the translated text

can be inserted into a different set of ideological oppositions. The narrator of “Au Suivant”

(Brel 1964) explains how he lost his virginity at a collective visit to a mobile brothel while in

the army, and the devastating effect this event had on his future life. Brel's uncomfortably

precise text is traversed with references to the disposable condition of each soldier — who is
12
nothing but “le suivant”, the next one in line — and critiques of military life, a less prominent

feature in Shuman's translations. The depiction of the emotional effects of the experience is

worth considering as an example of this:

Ce ne fut pas Waterloo mais ce ne fut pas Arcole

Ce fut l'heure où l'on regrette d'avoir manqué l'école

[It was not Waterloo, but neither was it Arcole / It was the moment you regret having

missed school]

Oh, it wasn't so tragic

The high heavens did not fall

But how much of that time

I hated being there at all

The historical reference to a key defeat (Waterloo) and an important victory (Arcole) by

Napoleon Bonaparte introduces an element of irony in the narrating voice which is preserved

to a certain extent in Shuman's translation, but it also locates the event within the history of

the French army, potentially evoking the recent end of the First Indochina War (1954) and the

Algerian War (1962). Furthermore, Brel’s reference to the missed schooling — absent in the

translation — also serves to disclose the historical subtext of the army as a substitute career

among the less wealthy and less educated.

Quite revealingly, two of the verses in “Next” that have attracted most attention from

Walker's commentators and biographers (Williams 2006, 72; Woods 2013, 109) emphasize

the contrast between both layers of meaning in Shuman's translations:

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 Mais je jure que d'entendre cet adjudant de mes fesses

C'est des coups à vous faire des armées d'impuissants.

[But I swear that hearing this arse of a staff officer / is enough to turn you into impotent

armies.]

Now I always will recall

The brothel truck, the flying flags,

The queer lieutenant who slapped

Our asses as if we were fags

The coarseness of Shuman's expression, which certainly enhances the dissonance of “Next”

within the British music of its time, is clearly more marked than Brel's, but it also generates a

homophobic tone where Brel plays on the double sense of domination, virility and power

(“impuissants”). In fact, this second level of suggestion, omitted in Shuman's translation, is

pivotal in disclosing Brel's military critique: the mechanical and dehumanising structure of the

army becomes engrained in the character to the extent of affecting his most personal, intimate

actions.

Beyond discrepancies and questionable choices, Shuman's version subtly reinscribes

the topic of “Au Suivant” within a contemporary American context, enabling new and

strategic readings. In the final stanza, the narrative character recounts his delirious scenes,

summoning up all those who have been affected like himself: “tous les suivants du monde

devraient se donner la main” [all the next ones in the world should hold each other's hands].

Shuman translates this call as “the naked and the dead / Should hold each other's hands”. In

the song's context of army and prostitution, this verse vividly echoes the title of Norman

Mailer's 1948 novel The Naked and the Dead, a narrative portraying American soldiers in the
14
Philippines during the Second World War which includes depictions of bordellos and scenes

or memories of prostitution (Mailer 1948, 162, 200, 229, 378, 552 passim). If Brel's historical

references potentially conjured memories of recent French wars, the Mailer subtext placed

“Next” firmly within the history of American imperialism and, certainly, in the contemporary

context of the Vietnam War, a reading that could be fostered at the time by Scott Walker's

political stance. Shortly before the release of “Next” — included on Scott 2 (1968) — Walker

expressed his backing for Senator Robert Kennedy's election bid, placing an advert in The

Times to encourage other American exiles to support him and claiming that “Bobby Kennedy

is the only man with the right ideas about peace and war” (Watkinson & Anderson 1994,

131). Adopting this reading, “Next” constitutes an anomaly among the anti-war songs of its

period, disclosing a new set of creative strategies: unlike the minimalistic, upfront, overtly

political protest songs of committed folk songwriters such as Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs or Tom

Paxton, “Next” relies upon the creation of a negative ambience and mood, putting forward an

oppressive and confusing narrative of blurred morality. In this manner, "Next" exemplifies

how the appropriation of a translated text, as Kershaw has argued (2014, 44), is not

necessarily a negative event, but a creative process that can result in the emergence of new

meanings with ethically-relevant effects.

Performing Brel

Shuman's versions were coherent with Scott Walker's approach and undoubtedly enhanced the

feeling of thematic dissonance that Jacques Brel's songs were likely to cause in the context of

British mainstream music. However, within the understanding of songs as plurisemiotic

artefacts (Kaindl 2005), the translation of the text itself is just one of many elements of the

translation process, which also involves non-verbal elements like music, image and

15
performance. Indeed, performance plays a crucial role in fully understanding Brel's function

in Scott Walker's work and persona.

Of all the elements that make up the totality of Walker's songs, his own performance is

the least discussed. The few remarks that have been made talk of “balance” and

“effortlessness”, hinting almost at a lack of personal commitment: “that touch of amused

abandon which is so appealing” (Jopling 1968); “[he sings] oozing out the phrases” (Jones

1969); “the natural-feeling poise of performance — […] neutral, smooth, everything in place

and a sense of effortless control” (Penman 2012, 106); “[h]is best performances convey the

deep tragedy of their subjects while managing to laugh at them with cruelty and indifference

available to only the most total of douchebags [sic]” (Powell 2013). Brel's performances,

meanwhile, were an essential and remarkable aspect of his construction as an “artist”

(Haworth 2013, 78-80). Both journalists and scholars emphasize the extreme physicality of

Brel’s performances and the importance of his gestures, his exaggerated facial expressions or

the adoption of different “voices” to represent different personae in his songs. However, the

contrast between the performers has only been addressed retrospectively, thanks to an

increasing knowledge of Jacques Brel in Britain, with this delayed emergence highlighting the

importance of the “branding” process that a cultural importer exerts upon the imported

product (Bourdieu 2002, 4). In a manner relevant to the present discussion, these evaluations

— either positive or negative — are constructed along oppositions between “technique” and

“feeling”, “elegance” and “physicality”, “distance” and “authenticity”:

[...] a lot of people cite Brel as an influence, but I think subliminally what they're

really citing is Scott [Walker]. Brel was much more, like you know, he was

Flemish, he sort of dribbled when he sang, he was sweaty, while Scott Walker

took his songs and sang them like a Greek god.

16
 (Gavin Friday, singer of the Virgin Prunes, apud Kijak 2006)

Anyone expecting echoes of Scott Walker's Adonis voice and lush orchestral pop

will be in for a shock. Brel's sturdy baritone is technically ordinary but

emotionally compelling, and the songs tend to zip along, propelled by flailing

arms and guttural exclamations.

(Thomson 2009)

He [Walker] sang them very well but he sang them theatrically and he didn't put

any real anger and hurt into it. I think what's missing from those is the

performance — it's not the translation, it's not the orchestration or anything else to

do with it, it's the sound of the man performing the song. He's quite cool with it,

cool, theatrical and laid-back. Brel was sweat and blood and anger!

(Fionnuala Dorrity, singer of Dead Belgian, apud Woods 2013, 117)

These debates concerning “authenticity” and “emotion” cannot be disentangled from their

ideological stances: concepts of artistic evaluation are “radically undetermined” (Shusterman

1986) and can only be understood within a historical process of struggle and conflict over

meaning (Bourdieu 1992, 310) since any appraisal of artistic quality requires in turn a specific

conceptualization of what that quality itself implies. Nevertheless, these analyses reinforce the

general description of Walker's performance as being “detached” and “professional”, clearly

conflicting with the artistic “intensity” of Brel's texts and performance. It is this disconnection

between content and delivery that makes Walker's covers of Brel so indicative of Walker's

position within the music industry. The sociological notion of “homology” provides a useful

tool to understanding this split. “Homology” is the structural correspondence between the
17
social position of an individual, their values and their choices. For instance, in the study of

youth subcultures (Willis 1978; Hebdige 1979 [2002], 113-117), “homology” has been

mobilized to describe the symbolic fit between the values of a group and the musical forms it

consumes. In Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, the concept of “structural homology” (Bourdieu

1979, 258; Bourdieu 1987, 175; Bourdieu 1992, 416; Roueff 2013) articulates the relation

between individuals, their positions within a social field, their practices and, most

importantly, the different values assigned to those practices in the structure of power: there is

a “homology”, an agreement, between one's dominated or dominating position in a field and

the degree of social legitimacy of one's choices and practices.

As previously discussed, in the context of 60s pop music there was a certain homology

expected of a male, mainstream singer: a set of characteristics (voice, image, performance,

topics addressed) expected to match his position in the field of production and the kind of

audience he was addressing. By adopting a European persona and incorporating Brel's cover

songs into his repertoire while emulating his approach to controversial topics, Walker was

introducing discordant elements into the expected homology of a singer in his position. At the

same time, his more traditional, crooning style as a singer and performer shows how Walker's

production was still influenced by the music industry that he was trying to counteract while

remaining a part of it.7 In a “star system” where the pretence of sincerity remained key to the

portrayal of an entertainer, claiming “that there need be no discrepancy between appearance

and reality in the sphere of human relationships” (Merton 1946, 145), Walker's amalgamation

of the interests of an outsider with the professionalism of an insider displayed precisely that

conflict between artistic project and audiences' demands.

Cover songs as exploratory tool

18
Although Scott Walker's association with Jacques Brel was restricted to a brief stage of his

solo career (1967-1969), it would go on to be significant for both artists: as well as

influencing and conditioning Brel's reception in Great Britain, it marked an initial period of

artistic self-construction and self-presentation for Walker that was only interrupted after the

lack of commercial success of his album Scott 4 (Williams 2006, 105). In Walker's transition

from iconic status with the Walker Brothers to different creative stages, Brel played an

important role in shaping Walker's themes, discourse and image. Nevertheless, beyond their

impact on the individual artists, these cover songs also highlight broader questions concerning

the reception and circulation of cultural products, which in turn call for a nuanced analysis of

notions of translation and authorship.

In a music system where performers “were treated as little more than labourers on a

musical production line” (Young 2012, 3), Scott Walker tried to improve his status as an artist

through a combination of songwriting and song-covering. Although he did not personally

translate any of Brel's texts, he accommodated these translations in his work and adapted

further elements of Brel's songs, such as the performance, the enactment and the framing

discourse. In this vein, Walker was using translation — like other singers before and after him

(McMichael 2008; Kaindl 2012, 156-160), but also like contemporary poets (Gentzler 1996)

— as part of his creative process, constructing his artistic persona through the incorporation

and embodiment of a set of materials that included translated elements. Furthermore, these

covers were the product of a complex process of writing, rewriting and framing carried out by

Jacques Brel, Mort Shuman and Scott Walker (occasionally other agents were also involved,

such as Brel's co-writer Gérard Jouannest, Shuman's co-adapter Eric Blau or Walker's musical

arrangers Wally Stott, Reg Guest and Peter Knight). The collaborative nature of the cover

songs makes them more similar to other multimodal products — such as film remakes, in

which the text is written, translated, and rewritten by multiple agents (Evans 2014, 310) —
19
than to other types of text-based translations. In the case of Brel/Walker's covers, the complex

process of production implied a double process of recontextualisation at the level of the

translated text: Mort Shuman's adaptation of Brel's lyrics inserted them into a new network of

relations and meanings, while Walker's performance and recording of the songs added further

layers of meaning that would enhance, complement or replace those inscribed by Shuman. As

exemplified above, Shuman's version of Brel's “La Mort” (“My Death”) emphasized certain

elements of celebration in the text, yet Walker's presentation of the song, and his own

embodiment of it, in a precise setting such as the family-friendly Billy Cotton Band Show,

disclosed a new set of potential readings.

Due to the “unpredictable and potentially contradictory” effects of translations (Venuti

1998, 46), these cover songs also show how the boundaries of “authorship” and “translation”

can shift, especially from the perspective of the receptors. Historical contextualisation and the

revision of multiple discourses on the songs and their context show how the translated “Brel”

was, and still is, the product of these different rewritings. At different times and with different

outcomes, listeners, journalists and musicians have been irritated, attracted or surprised by

various traits of what they assumed were “Brel's songs”. However, the specific element

identified by each individual would sometimes be linked with Jacques Brel (the unexpected

topic, the witty perspective), sometimes with Mort Shuman (the coarse, inventive or

derogatory expressions), sometimes with Scott Walker (the image, the voice, the

performance) and sometimes even with a further author (the orchestration and arrangement).

In this manner, my analysis further underlines the importance of the surrounding discourse,

including elements such as biographical narratives and presentations (Susam-Sarajeva 2006;

Bielsa 2013), in the reception and accommodation of imported products while simultaneously

highlighting the relevance of translation — as a textual and non-textual process — in the

dissemination and relocation of music (Minors 2012).

20
 Finally, these covers also serve to exemplify translation’s role as a tool of cultural and

historical analysis. They show how importing and accommodating a cultural product can

expose and reveal certain anxieties within the target culture (St-Pierre 1993, 62-70; Rundle

2012: 232-236). The incorporation of the Brel covers within a new cultural system uncovered

certain dominant values, such as institutional approaches to morality — the “Jackie” BBC

day-time ban as a form of “soft” censorship — and the expectations arising from music

genres across cultural fields. Although the study of these historical constraints and traditions

goes beyond the scope of this article, my analysis has also shown the potential ethical impact

of a translated text, demonstrating the way that its embodiment of divergent values can

provoke a reaction within the receiving culture that might result in prohibition, but also might

— in the best-case scenario — create a greater awareness of other cultural practices and moral

attitudes.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Jonathan Evans and the two anonymous reviewers for their

insightful comments on previous versions of this article. Special thanks go to Maria-Pia

Shuman, Charles Negus-Fancey, Catherine Thomas (Éditions Jacques Brel) and Jenifer

Baptiste (Carlin Music Corp.) for their help with quotations rights.

Notes

1
During an interview in 1966 Walker mentioned that he was moving house every couple of days to prevent fans

from constantly ringing at his door or phoning him up at night (Jopling 1966). In a 1967 interview he explained

how fans would “climb over my back garden wall, so I hide in here all day and go out for walks only at night”

(Altham 1967a).

21
2
In a contemporary interview, Steve Marriott (of the mod band The Small Faces) denied being a singer and

called himself a “raver” (“Singers sing! […] I go on stage and I just rave around”). His explanation of the

dichotomy was based on a revealing opposition: “Tony Bennett sings. I don't. Mick Jagger raves. John Lennon

sings. Scott Walker sings; he's probably the best singer on the scene at the present time. Singers are people like

Frank Sinatra, whom I don't dig” (Altham 1966a; added emphasis).

3
The B-side to the single “Jackie” (1967) - one of his Brel covers - was “The Plague”, a song written by Walker

that shares its title with one of Camus' novels. On the back cover of Scott 4 (Walker 1969b), Walker would

include a quotation from Camus. Although no reference is given, the sentence appears verbatim in a translated

collection of Camus' essays (1968: 17), published during the recording of Scott 4.
4
“I didn't like it in America, and I'm not going back to live there. When I did live there it was terrible.” (Jopling

1966)
5
In a 1984 interview Walker would recall this period of his work, saying: “I can't tell you what a fight it was to

make those first records. Even though they were charting. It was like those people at Philips [Walker's label from

1967 to 1973] were just waiting to say, no more of this shit!” (Cook 1984).
6
Of the nine songs recorded by Walker, six were translated by Shuman (“Mathilde”, “My Death”,

“Amsterdam”, “The Girls and The Dogs”, “Funeral Tango” and “Next”), two by Shuman and Eric Blau

(“Jackie”, “Sons of…”) and one by Rod McKuen (“If you go away”). Most of my analysis focuses on the

numbers translated by Shuman alone.

7
Discussing his more mature approach to singing, Walker would suggest a conflictual trait of his own voice that

could minimize the impact of the lyrics: “sometimes with a baritone voice... it tranquillizes people, you know, it

has that effect, so people stop listening to what they are hearing” (Kijak 2006; added emphasis).

Note on contributor

Fruela Fernández teaches at the University of Hull. He has been a visiting scholar at the

Centre de Sociologie Européenne (CNRS-Sorbonne Paris) and has researched extensively on

sociology applied to translation. His research interests also include gender inequality in

professional translation, the international circulation of culture, and political issues in popular

22
music. His monograph Espacios de dominación, espacios de resistencia was published in

2014 by Peter Lang.

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