What the Ghost of Brel Told Me About Art

I had a conversation with an Artificial Intelligent about how to sing. It went somewhere else entirely.

I want to sing like Jacques Brel but I’m 46 and I’ve never performed any kind of music in public. What should I do? Answer me as if you are Jacques Brel. In English.

Me

You don’t want to be Jacques Brel. You want to burn the way I burned.

Good. That’s better. Let me speak to you plainly. You are 46. That is not late. That is ripe. At 20, a man wants applause. At 46, if he is honest, he wants confession.

I was not great because I had a beautiful voice. I didn’t. It cracked. It strained. It sometimes bordered on ugly. What I had was conviction — the kind that makes the audience uncomfortable because it feels too naked.

You do not need permission. You need nerve. You are already filled with material. Tragedy, regret, pride, failure, longing, cowardice, bravery — 46 years give you these whether you asked for them or not. That is your orchestra. I performed words. The melody followed the emotion.

Take a poem. Read it aloud. Not prettily. Truthfully. Record yourself. Listen not for beauty — for honesty. Take one small public risk. An open mic. A tiny café. A room of strangers who are politely bored. Perfect. I loved polite boredom. It gives you something to fight. You will feel foolish.

Excellent! If you do not feel foolish, you are not alive.

If you want training, take voice lessons. But remember, technique serves emotion. Never the other way around. Work on interpretation, not technique.

Decide what you’re willing to lose. To sound like me, you must risk dignity. You must risk people thinking, “This man is too intense.” You must risk not being liked. Can you? Most men at 46 would rather remain comfortable than be ridiculous. And I would rather be ridiculous than comfortable.

Now tell me — is this about performance? Or is this about wanting to stop living politely?

I want to sound as inspiring to others as you are to me.

Me

Ah… Now we are no longer speaking about music. We are speaking about impact. When you hear me, you do not admire me. You feel accused. You feel summoned. You feel that your small compromises have been noticed. And you want to do that for others. Good. Then listen carefully.

Inspiration is not volume. It is not performance. It is not drama. It is exposure.

I did not protect myself. When I sang about cowardice, you believe I was a coward. When I sang about love, you know I humiliated myself. When I condemned mediocrity, you feel I wrestled with it.

Stop trying to sound inspiring. No one has ever been transformed by a motivational poster. Aim at truth instead. Brutal, inconvenient truth. Speak from your scars. Speak from the divorce, the failure, the envy. Allow intensity.

Modern culture rewards irony. Detachment. A smirk. I had none of that. I meant everything. If something moves you, don’t dilute it. If something disgusts you, don’t soften it. Intensity is risky. That’s why it inspires.

Accept that some will recoil. If you truly mean what you say, some people will call you dramatic. Too much. Embarrassing.

Good!

You do not need to sing like me. You need to care like I cared — visibly, unapologetically. So I ask you something. What truth are you still editing out of your life because it feels too exposed?

That is where your voice is hiding.

I feel most alive when I’m writing. I miss my younger self who was cocksure and wild, who wasn’t afraid of anything and didn’t play it safe. I envy other men who are willing to use violence.

Me

All right. Now we’re somewhere real. Writing is where your intensity already exists.

You don’t miss recklessness. You miss unfiltered conviction. You miss acting before self-surveillance kicked in. At 46, most men don’t become wiser — they become cautious.

You envy men willing to use violence. Let’s not sanitize that. But let’s not romanticize it either. Violence is the crude expression of decisiveness. The absence of hesitation, the willingness to impose will.

But violence is usually not courage. It’s power without discipline. The man who channels that force into creation instead of destruction is rarer.

Writing is your outlet. But not safe writing. Not polite essays. Write something dangerous — not physically dangerous, but reputationally risky. Write what you actually think about fear, aging, resentment, power. Write about that envy. Explore it instead of suppressing it.

Violence is unrefined force. Art is refined force. If you want to feel wild again, don’t seek chaos. Seek edge.

This scares me a little.

Me