Amsterdam (Brel) but in English?!?!?!

[NotQuiteCockney]

I heard this song in a food store today, and it just about drove me mad. It was a bad translation, the singer wasn't as good as Brel (ok, who is) and was just all around dreadful. It was maybe kinda sarcastic with it? Dear god. It was nightmarish.

Please tell me I imagined it?

Scott Walker did a version of it on a Brel covers album - you can here a sample of it here if you want to check whether it's as awful as the one you heard ...

I vaguely remember my mother having it on a Jack Jones LP from the 70s as well.

And David Bowie did a version too, on one of his live albums - but you'd probably have realised if it was him singing it!

Deffo wasn't David Bowie. That Scott Walker one isn't bad, actually. It wasn't that.

This one had instrumentation exactly like the Brel version I know. Making comparison to Brel's voice inevitable. The singing style was kinda jazzy.

Ohh, you've lost me now then ... I only know those three versions. Jack Jones wasn't jazzy, just croony and rather wet.

I was complaining to the bloke behind the till about it. It was really messing with my head, as I was trying to sing the right lyrics in my head, and wincing at the poor quality of the lyrics I was hearing. I'm pretty sure it was modern, tbh.

Arse, some websearching is revealing that this probably wasn't Amsterdam, arse arse arse.

It's on that album with the clouds on the front, and I can't even find that now.

Les Marquises ?

Yes! Now I just have to find the actual song ... gah ...

I think it might be La Ville s'Endormait.

Are you a Brel fan, then? I like Gainsbourg better, mostly, but do like Brel.

I do like Brel, yes.

My mother used to have LPs of people like Jack Jones and Johnny Mathis singing his stuff, and while I hated the terrible crooning I loved the songs. So I bought several of his albums when I was younger - still like them now but don't listen to them all that often anymore.

Which is a shame, must dig them out again.