“Jacques Brel wrote the original song. It was originally called “Le Moribond.” It means “The Dying Man,” “The Dying.” It was about an old man who was dying of a broken heart because his best friend was screwing his wife. He wrote this in a whorehouse in Tangiers, and the words were quite different. Jacques has passed away now, but he was a great French writer and singer and actor. Years and years later, a really good friend of mine died, he had acute leukemia. I guess maybe 1971. We were playing golf and he told me he’s got six months to live. I said, “Oh, come on.” And he said, “No, there’s no cure for what I’ve got.” In those days there was no cure for that type of leukemia. Now they do bone marrow transplants. He was gone in four months. He was a very good friend of mine, one of my best friends, and he said I was the first one that he told. I remembered this song of an old man dying of a broken heart, and I liked some of the melody and there was something there. I rewrote the song about him and how he said goodbye to his friend and then he said goodbye to his father instead of his priest, and then he said goodbye to his girlfriend.”Terry Jacks (434)