Brel's first two LPs on one CD + 3 bonus tracks [unreleased at the time] Brel's debut LP ‘Jacques Brel et Ses Chansons’, crept on to shop shelves sometime in 1954 & ‘Quand on n'a que l'Amour’ (tracks 13–22 ) followed in 1957. Described, in this early part of his career, as a Catholic humanist troubadour, these early songs are the initial building blocks upon which, over the next decade, he would become possibly the best-known and most-loved (worldwide) of all chansonniers.

Vic Templar : “It was through my discovery of, and subsequent obsession with, Scott Walker in 1985 that I first came to Brel’s songs. Translated by Mort Shuman or Rod McEwan, they portrayed a hideous cast of characters populating a frightening cityscape; drunkards, dreamers, soldiers, sailors, whores, lovers, madmen, the hopeful, the lovelorn, the forgotten, the manic and the sad. I had never heard anything like it and it is no exaggeration to say that Walker and Brel changed my life. I loved these songs from Walker’s rich baritone, ignorant that the translations were apparently ham-fisted, lacking Brel’s exquisite word play and imagery, and, in some cases, changing the song’s essence. It was a year or two before I discovered the originals but I was at once struck by the intensity and emotion with which Brel communicates to someone with only the barest grasp of the language (as he had done to those New York and London audiences). The pain, the passion and the humour remain intact. And so I came to love Jacques Brel and his music. Not just the Brel who had blessed the genius of Scott Walker, but Jacques Brel le chansonnier. ”