Today I’m in Belgium at the European Parliament offices with a group of Scottish students who are taking part in the final of the OurEurope competition, organised by SEET. I’ve prerecorded possibly the most famous Belgian song ever written: Jacques Brel’s 1959 classic Ne Me Quitte Pas (“don’t leave me”). It’s a beautiful, haunting melody, and the middle section borrows a theme from Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 where Brel sings:

Moi, je t’offrirai des perles de pluie venues de pays où il ne pleut pas.
I’ll give you pearls of rain from lands where it doesn’t rain.

The song has been translated into many languages and has been recorded by hundreds of artists. I hope you enjoy my version today.

To hear all of my June songs, click here. If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about why I’m trying to record a piano tune every day here.

https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/ne-me-quitte-pas