"If You Go Away" is a song in English based upon the French song "Ne Me Quitte Pas" (1959), written by Jacques Brel. The English lyrics were written by Rod McKuen as part of a larger project to translate Brel's work. "If You Go Away" is considered a pop standard and has been recorded by many artists: Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones, Brenda Lee, Violetta Villas, Shirley Bassey, Daliah Lavi, Marc Almond, Emilíana Torrini, Neil Diamond, Scott Walker, Farhad Mehrad, Dusty Springfield and Cyndi Lauper.<br />The complex melody is partly derivative of classical music - the poignant "But if you stay..." passage comes from Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 3.<br /><br />Here, beautiful performance of Marc Almond on his album "Jacques" (1989)
