When I try to describe Serge Gainsbourg to my American friends who aren't familiar with this French icon, it's difficult to sum him up with a quick comparison. He has more range than Sinatra, more than madness than Cash, more vulgarity than Jagger and more soul than Elvis. His sound ranges from his early days of jazz and pop to spoken word, experimental, reggae to his final days of electroclash and dance. His lyrics are poetic yet sleazy, clever yet simple and saturated with metaphors and obscurities that would make any new French student whose desperate to understand crazy from the double entendres. Séb always chuckles and nods at his lyrics that go right over my head. Most of them do, but not all...
"Et ses seins, deux spheres, entre lesquelles,J'abandonnais deux mois de salaire,Pour y rouler mon pauvre joint." J'adore. C'est tellement cochon...c'est tellement moi...
Serge's grave at Montparnasse Cemetary
Chez SergeThe contrast between Serge's home and the bourgeois 6th arrondissement is absolutely incredible. His house is so Oberkampf. The old world neighbors cringe at the eyesore located in this otherwise upscale rive gauche neighborhood where they rallied up and painted over the graffiti to find that it was tagged up again by fans days later.
The house is still owned by Charlotte and everything inside is exactly the way it was when he died in 1991. The ashtrays are full with his Gitanes, his shoes and clothes are where they were when he last took them off as well and as his collectibles, art and photographs which are precisely where he had set them down. Nothing has been touched, just the exploded cans of food and perishables. Understandably so.
Je t'aime...moi non plus. A sketch outside Serge's home was drawn by Joann Sfarr,
the director of the incredible Gainsbourg biopic; La Vie Héroïque
Serge has been a big part of my French life, whether I was new to town in my first apartment at La Motte-Picquet, experiencing dating in Paris, weathering the trials and tribulations of new and often fleeting friendships, getting engaged than getting dumped to now starting over and loving life. There has always been a Serge song to match my emotional climate whether I'm feeling Gainsbourg ou Gainsbarre....
