For years, Gainsbourg has been hovering over the French music scene. His versatility at both music and lyrics, as well as his lifestyle, not only turned him into a monumental figure of European music, but in later years also inspired many *interpretations*. As someone noted on YouTube, Kate Moss and Pete Doherty look strangely similar to Birkin-Gainsbourg duet, except that Doherty’s influence on modern music is not as decisive, as was Gainsbourg’s. Then again, as Philip Sweeney remarked a year ago in The Independent, “Gainsbourg was an enthralled recycler of English and American trends, themes and phrases“, which may signal to somebody that Gainsbourg was not necessarily original.
This, however, is not the case, as Sweeney notes himself, because Gainsbourg’s songs are extremely difficult to translate into English and, in fact, into any other language. Consider this passage from his song ‘Variations sur Marilou‘:
Dans son regard absent
Et son iris absinthe
Tandis que Marilou s’amuse à faire des vol
Utes de sèches au menthol
Entre deux bulles de comic-strip
Tout en jouant avec le zip
De ses Levi’s
Je lis le vice
Et je pense à Caroll Lewis
It makes sense in English, if translated, but, as often happens, the difference in pronunciation takes away this lingering quality of original French lyrics. Furthermore, because of this difference the last three lines don’t produce the same effect. The emphasis on ‘-iss’ in the French text reminds one of a gentle murmur, of mussitation; the English version would never capture this effect.
So, on to Histoire de Melody Nelson. It was Gainsbourg’s 1972 conceptual album, which cover you may see on the right. Containing 7 songs, “Melody Nelson is a weirdly jewel-like micro-opera featuring a vintage Rolls-Royce, a male obsession for the eponymous 14-year-old garçonne, and demise via New Guinean cargo-cult, rendered by Gainsbourg’s voluptuous drawl and Birkin’s Lolita whisper, and a richly idiosyncratic instrumentation by Gainsbourg’s close collaborator Jean-Claude Vannier, owing as much to Abbey Road, George Martin and the film soundtracks of John Barry as to anything from Paris“. (Philip Sweeney, The Independent, 16 April 2006).
You can obviously find the album on Amazon.com, where the featured cover comes from. You can browse the links below, to read more about the album and/or Serge Gainsbourg. But on YouTube you can also find the videos to the songs. The videos, like the songs, are psychedelic, and feature the paintings of Max Ernst, Paul Delvaux, Salvador Dali, Felix Labisse, René Magritte, Henri Rousseau, which makes Gainsbourg’s album even dearer to my heart because I’ve been a devouted student of French surrealism for years.
The video I’m putting up here is the 5th part of the album. It is called ‘L’hôtel particulier‘, and uses predominantly the works of Paul Delvaux, with a few glimpses of Felix Labisse’s images. If you want to read the lyrics to the song, follow the link to Alex Chabot’s translation.
Links:
Serge Gainsbourg’s site – in French. Very informative – be careful if you’re a serious Serge’s fan and didn’t know about this site: you may very well spend the entire night reading the story of a remarkable talent.
Alex Chabot’s translations of Gainsbourg’s texts.
Specifically L’hôtel particulier (from the above).
Philip Sweeney, Serge Gainsbourg: Filthy French (The Independent, 16 April 2006). Also: LookSmart’s FindArticles – Filthy French
Notes on Histoire de Melody Nelson – some interesting and somewhat sentimental facts about the making of this album from Movie Grooves.
Histoire de Melody Nelson on Amazon.com