Earwigs

I’ve been bushwacked by a tune.  It was a tune I hadn’t heard, or thought about, for years, most likely decades, and suddenly it’s there in my head, and I can’t make it go away.

So I thought I’d pass the ear bug on to you.  Maybe you’ll take it with you when you leave.

I’m being stalked by “If You Go Away,” by the Belgian singer/songwriter Jacques Brel, the song known to you Francophone types by its original title, “Ne Me Quitte Pas.”  I don’t know quite how I avoided hearing it for all that time, because it’s been recorded by just about everyone, from Sinatra and Streisand to Sting and Madonna.

I present you here with Ray Charles’ version.  I’d like to offer you Brel’s video, but though it’s available for viewing on YouTube, I’m not allowed to embed it.  (You should check it out, though, to see Brel’s sweat-soaked emoting at its finest.  If he were performing today, he could be sold under the slogan: “EMO— but good!”)

Now I’m going to go off and try desperately to think of another tune.  Let me think now . . . what’s more addictive than the tune already in my head?  Hmmm.