Mathilde/Jackie

Dear James,

Here's my favourite song this week, Mathilde by Scott Walker. And with it comes a fun new game: Watch the Jacques Brel version with English subtitles and then the Scott Walker version, then perform a semantic analysis of the translation. Hours of fun.



If you enjoyed that, you can do the same with Jacques' version of Jackie and Scott's version, sadly not translated as "Scotty". Hours of intellectual entertainment! And I've just realised Jacques' original makes a clear reference to Carlos Gardel.

Dear Daniel,

Wow. I've loved Scott Walker's Mathilde for while. The way it builds, its relentlessness, the way it explodes with "Charlie! Champagne, right away!", the trumpets' triumphant salute. But that Jacque Brel version tops it... so much more intense, so much darker, much much madder, a lot more personal. There are also gut-wrenchingly contraversial open references to angry domestic violence which I hope are a sign of those times, rather than a sign of the French.