Saturday Special

Gainsbourg /ganzbur /

Gainsbourg, Serge (1928-91), born Lucien Ginzburg, French painter. He was known for having destroyed all his paintings. A classically trained pianist, he made a name for himself in the minor arts of pop music and cinema. He is remembered for his outstanding ability at composing avant-garde songs (550, and still counting), and mastering all musical genres. His lyrics are chockablock with puns and double-entendre, irreverent but also deeply poetical. His music and his singing sound unexpectedly modern and distinctive. Chain-smoking, unshaven, barefoot and sometimes drunk, in the 70s and 80s Gainsbourg would make frequent and memorable apparitions on French prime TV, often in company of Jane Birkin, his free-spirited lover. In turn subversive and conventional, the self-called cabbage-head man oozed charm. Obsessed with sex he didn’t feel he needed to go on rehab. He preferred to put his obsessions to music. Brigitte Bardot was a lover, Catherine Deneuve possibly too. Singing ‘lemon incest’ for TV, on a bed with pre-teen daughter Charlotte, he pushed all boundaries. His generation loathed him for that. We love him for the same reason – and much more.

 

 

 - ‘Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited’, 2005  - Brian Molko, Portishead, Kid Loco, Franz Ferdinand, Cat Power, The Rakes, etc, cover 14 of Gainsbourg’s tracks.

 - ‘Intoxicated man’, 1995,  Mick Harvey’s tribute album to Gainsbourg. Texts are a translation of the originals and musical arrangements are Gainsbourg’s own.