In 1959, Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel wrote and performed “Ne me quitte pas” [Don’t Leave Me], a visceral and haunting plea for his lover to come back. As a teenager, Maya Angela Smith was so captivated by Nina Simone’s powerful 1965 cover of the song that it inspired her to be a French professor. In Ne me quitte pas, Smith follows the classic song’s long and varied journey, from Brel’s iconic 1966 performance on French television to Simone’s cover to Shirley Bassey’s English-language version [“If You Go Away”] to its contemporary manifestations in popular culture. Throughout, Smith shows that as the song travels across languages, geographies, genres, and generations, it accumulates shifting artistic and cultural significance as each listener creates their own meaning with it.

"“Maya Angela Smith makes a persuasive case for ‘Ne me quitte pas’ as a cultural artifact that survives, travels, perpetuates itself across versions, languages, and audiences—one that is regularly translated and in turn translates its performers and audiences, so that each version has its own autonomy in difference. This insightful book is for anyone who has needed music as a source for transformation.”" - 1989: Bob Dylan Didn’t Have This to Sing About

"“Ne me quitte pas takes the reader on an exciting and beautifully researched journey through the varied afterlives of Jacques Brel’s classic about lost love and despair. Maya Angela Smith’s compelling autobiographical narrative illuminates further the song’s enduring relevance, as it moves across the often-impenetrable borders of race, gender, language, and nation.”" - Fictional Blues: Narrative Self-Invention from Bessie Smith to Jack White