For many years now, I have thought that I would want the complete works of Jacqes Brel -- in French as well as in English.

I figure that since I studied French for a fair few years, and love the language, and like playing with words in English, it would keep me occupied for many years. Since my French is rusty, it would take quite a bit of time for me just to completely understand the French versions; then I could start trying to see if I could come up with translations into English that are even better than the (already brilliant, IMHO) current ones.

Pointless? Certainly. But my "project" could keep me happily occupied... probably endlessly!

I realise that my approach is unusual; everyone else I have ever heard of seems to think in terms of songs that they adore/could not live without and/or songs that remind them of important times/places/events/people in their lives (or some combination of those two).

If I went with the Brel recordings, then the book I'd want would be a French-English/English-French dictionary (of course).

I wonder if they'd let me have the complete Child Ballads instead of the Bible (it's a bible of sorts, isn't it?)...