Elly Stone is a modest 87 year old New Yorker ("born and dragged up"), whose sublime voice will forever be associated with the songs of Belgian chanteur Jacques Brel. In My Childhood, Song for Old Lovers, The Old Folks and Carousel she brings a new perspective to Brel's familiar emotional intensity and piercing social commentary. Twenty years after her retirement from the stage, she offers a rare insight into her life and what music has meant to her - in a quiet New York studio, out on the streets of her bustling city and at Sardi's, the famous theatre restaurant. Running through Elly's own story - from troubled childhood, through Broadway success, to marriage, motherhood and mid-life epiphany - there's a musical counterpoint that can be traced in the songs she famously made her own in the musical revue Jacques Brel's Alive and Well and Living in Paris. Produced by Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.