For some reason the lyrics to Seasons in the Sun have been brought to mind over the past week. I heard the version Terry Jacks and first in the early 1970s.
The version that Mr. Jacks sang seemed strange since it was about death and he sounded healthy.
I did some research and learned the song was originally written "Le Moribond" ("The Dying Man"), this was written and performed in French by the Belgian poet-composer Jacques Brel in 1961. The American poet Rod McKuen translated the lyrics to English, and in 1964 The Kingston Trio released the first English-language version of the song.
Jacques Brel told Terry Jacks about writing the song. "It was about an old man who was dying of a broken heart because his best friend was screwing his wife," Jacks said. "He wrote this in a whorehouse in Tangiers, and the words were quite different. The song originally he used to do on stage and it was in a march form, like, 'Bom ba DUM, bom ba DUM.' Quite a different thing. This old man was dying of a broken heart and he was saying goodbye to his priest and his best friend and his wife, who cheated on him. Her name was Francoise, and it went, 'Adieu, Francoise, my trusted wife, without you I'd have had a lonely life. You cheated lots of times but then I forgave you in the end, though your lover was my friend.'"
FYI
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