Ne me quitte pas

Maya Angela Smith

Ne me quitte pas
Format
Hardback
Publisher
Duke University Press
Country
United States
Published
25 February 2025
Pages
160
ISBN
9781478028253

Ne me quitte pas

Maya Angela Smith

In 1959, Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel wrote and performed "Ne me quitte pas" [Don't Leave Me], a visceral and haunting plea for his lover to come back. As a teenager, Maya Angela Smith was so captivated by Nina Simone's powerful 1965 cover of the song that it inspired her to be a French professor. In Ne me quitte pas, Smith follows the classic song's long and varied journey, from Brel's iconic 1966 performance on French television to Simone's cover to Shirley Bassey's English-language version ["If You Go Away"] to its contemporary manifestations in popular culture. Throughout, Smith shows that as the song travels across languages, geographies, genres, and generations, it accumulates shifting artistic and cultural significance as each listener creates their own meaning with it.

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