I love Serge Gainsbourg.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

Anyone with me on this?

[alexwcovington]

1. Who?

[Screaming Lord Byron]

2. This guy.

http://www.wfmu.org/~bart/sg.html

especially for the Whitney Houston comment.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. So it isn't just me?

Serge rawks

His "demeano(u)r" toward Miss Whitney was priceless. I only wish he was around to romance Britney, Paris, Hillary and the Sisters Olson just as he did to an entire generation of yé-yé girls like Françoise Hardy and Sylvie Vartan.

--bkl
Vive Le Poinçonnier de Lilas!

[Screaming Lord Byron]

5. He's the most punk rock individual ever.

and a hell of a composer. His sixties music for me rivals the Beatles.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

6. also the first white guy to record with Sly and Robbie in Jamaica.

[Dogmudgeon]

7. That's an understatement

So much modern music is a footnote to Gainsbourg (a.k.a. Gainsbarre) that my mind often boggles to think he's unknown in this country except for some of the music cognoscenti.

Punk rock -- oui. Cute little teenage girls singing pop songs about high school crushes (half of whom he eventually would persuade into unconventional sexual liasons)? -- naturellement. Plus English music-hall stuff, the blues, rockabilly, and "Progressive Rock". Serge was one of those guys who did it all simply by doing it first.

All of his stuff is being released in the Integrale series. They're up to #8, I think.

BTW, Hardy and Vartan are still recording, too.

--bkl

[RebelOne]

3. Ditto. Never heard of him.

[TXlib]

8. Yup. Serge Gainsbourg rocks.

[Laughing Mirror]

9. He was one of the rare artists so full of energy

that he was constantly doing something, working on something, in spite of the fact that he was smoking and drinking himself to death, he literally was.

His unkempt unshaved person would regularly show up on any two-bit talk show you could name in France, and for decades you could turn on TV and he'd be on there somewhere.

Did he really die so long ago as 1991 as this article says?

I'll never forgot posters of him in lipstick drag all over Paris when his album Love On the Beat came out.

He loved the music from the US and did most of his later records in American studios with American musicians I think, and I think he was somewhat of an Americanophile, if that is a word.

He used English in his songs, but I don't think he ever really spoke much English, or if he did, not well. I saw that episode on the show with Whitney Houston, and it looked to me that he said what he did to her, not only because he had a reputation as a provocateur, but also because it was one of the few expressions he knew how to say in English, vulgar and inappropriate as it was.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

10. I think the Whitney thing was Serge thinking

'what's the absolute worst thing i can say right now?'

[Dogmudgeon]

12. It was also "Little Serge" thinking

'if I play my cards right, I can do her on TV in front of ten million people!'

--bkl

[Screaming Lord Byron]

13. Yeah, at least he was being honest.

In the worst way possible.

[Dogmudgeon]

21. And honesty ...

... is exactly what Miss Whitney has always needed, in the worst possible way.

All the years of having her legendary fanny kissed by legions of sycophants has led to dissolute behavior and her demise. M. Gainsbourg simply told her toochis ahfen tish, kopedreynetseh* and the rest is sweet history.

It really is the madmen who keep us honest the best.

--bkl
*Put up or shut up, baby!
(Literally: Buttocks on the table, empty-headed-female-affectionate)

[Laughing Mirror]

39. if you want to talk about dissolute behavior

because of adoring fans leading to somebody's demise, Serge could certainly give Whitney a run for her money.

[Laughing Mirror]

14. Well did you see it? He seemed to sincerely want to fuck her.

And she didn't know him from Adam and seemed repulsed by what most have looked to her like a slovely drunken letcher that for somoe reason was a big star in France just like herself.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

17. Haven't seen it in years, so you may well be right.

[Whitacre D_WI]

11. Les Sambassadeurs sont venir a dansant...

Je Serge aime beaucoup! "Histoire de Melody Nelson" is one of my top-ten albums of all time. And from the very beginning -- "J'fais des trous, de p'tit trous, toujour de p'tit trous" ...through the middle -- "Je vais et je viens, entre tes riens" ...to the end (okay, so I don't like "You're Under Arrest," but the remix of "Requiem pour un Con" was tres chic); that cat was the baddest on the block.

And besides, who can forget little France Gall singing about sucking and sucking (on her lollipop, you perverts ;)) until the juice filled her mouth?

[Whitacre D_WI]

15. Oh yes...

And what's more punk rock than a Russian Jew, whose family fled persecution in their homeland only to have the Nazis make them wear the yellow star in France, writing a rock opera about the last days of Hitler?

[Screaming Lord Byron]

16. The man had some pretty serious balls.

Rock around the bunker, rock around, rock around.

[Whitacre D_WI]

19. Let me get something stuck in your head for the rest of the day:

Nazi rock, Nazi! Nazi, Nazi rock, Nazi!

[flamingyouth]

18. I love him!

:hi: !!!

[Obamarama]

20. Very cool dude...

I had no idea who Serge Gainsbourg was until I ran across his grave about five years ago in the Cimiterie Montparnasse in Paris during one of my visits there. His grave was covered with flowers and admiring notes in all languages and I thought "Wow...who is THIS guy...never heard of HIM!?"

I did some research when I got home. Very cool guy....

[RandomKoolzip]

22. Ugh. I can't stand Serge Gainsbourg.

But my wife LOVES him. She collects everything he's ever done on vinyl. She's a total fanatic.

All that sleazy mumbling...ick. Plus he was never able to sing on key-not that you have to sing on key to be great, but if you've got a voice that sounds like a drunken, distracted grumble, the least you can do is sing in the same key the band is playing in.

Having said that, I love "Harley David-son of a Bitch." And the reggae stuff he did with Sly and Robbie in 79 is okay.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

23. You know, your 'In Bob we trust stamp' - I was sure that was Geldof.

Now I see, it's Pollard.

My wife's a huge Gainsbourg fan. What do women see in him?

[Whitacre D_WI]

24. Pure sex, SLB. They see pure sex.

n/t

[Dogmudgeon]

25. He WANTS sex. He doesn't NEED sex.

He wasn't ashamed of it and he wasn't too delicate about it. And if you told him to go shag off, he went and shagged off. (Well, most of the time, anyway.)

Being a genius didn't hurt, either.

Think of all the guys that women meet who act like needy, hurt puppies (a group into which I have often fallen). Then think of how powerfully arousing Gainsbourg's sexuality was to them.

Or, just ask a few female fans of Serge Gainsbourg and let them talk until they get that dangerously happy-psychotic look in their eyes ...

--bkl

[Screaming Lord Byron]

26. He was straightforward - 'I like sex, you like sex, lets have sex'

only a Frenchman could get away with that
Pierre Trudeau, anyone?

[Dogmudgeon]

28. Well, actually ...

... that's been about the only thing that's ever "worked" for me. I'm not in the least French, sad to say.

<nostalgia="sex">
Not that I've ever done it like Serge. But just about every woman I ever hooked up with (usually for more than "just sex") it was because I was in a "what-tha-f**k" mood. Otherwise, I was a puppydog for most of my life. Mind you, I'm no studmuffin now, but neediness and self-loathing not only turn women off, once I became aware of how badly I'd screwed up my own life, it became one highly annoying personality tic. Then, Gainsbourg's "charm" made perfect sense to me. But don't ask me for sex advice -- I've only managed to dispense with the self-loathing!
</nostalgia>

Besides, my music is several notches below Serge's. C'est ma manque.

Alas, "Go-Go Trudeau" passed away recently, too. He was 80 years old -- jeeze, I never thought of him as even being middle-aged! And "Maggie" will always be about 25 in my mind. I was about 10 when they got married, but even from here in the States, they made an impression.

--bkl

[Screaming Lord Byron]

29. Maggie's still under 50 (?). Trudeau had some very Serge-like qualities

Like the famous Pirouette, giving Salmon Arm the finger, 'Just Watch Me', although people may not know much about that beyond Canada.

on edit - I'd better make it clear that I mean Pierre, who was responsible for the above.

[Dogmudgeon]

31. O Canada! O Maggie!

Here in Duh Statez, we like to pretend that Canada is just a bunch of Frenchies that escaped our notice and seceeded while we were having our Civil War. Most people can tell you that the Montreal Canadiens are from Canada, as are several brands of beer. Some can go so far as to identify Celine Dion and Shania Twain as Canadians. When you start asking about Jean Chrétien, the want to know why "that bastard hates the USA so bad that he won't let our jets fly over France".

Once, many years ago, I asked some people I knew at school who John Alexander "John A." MacDonald was. Nobody knew he was the first Canadian PM, but two of them thought he was an old-time actor who did the introduction voice-over (scroll to 1965) to Days of Our Lives.

Like most "Yanks", I am completely unfamiliar with the incidents you mentioned that starred Margaret Trudeau. They sound pretty cool, though. One of these days, the Fates may permit the leadership of the USA some of that kind of verve.

--bkl

[RandomKoolzip]

32. Notice that discussions of music don't even enter into discussions of

Serge Gainsbourg. Proves my theory that the whole appeal of this guy is extra-musical; ie. his "aura," the "cult of personality." As a musician, Gainsbourg is decidedly third-or-fouth-rate. As a "personality," he's an intersting guy. Music, per se, doesn't even enter into it.

The fact that a convo about Gainsbourg quickly degenerated into sex talk and Canada-talk proves my point. There is nothing of musical interest here.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

33. I'm sorry we didn't stick to the set curriculum, teacher!

In my reckoning, Bonnie and Clyde is as good as any Beatles single.
Better?

[RandomKoolzip]

35. Okay, ya got me.

"Bonnie and Clyde" is a great tune. Not as good as the Beatles, but a great tune. I like Luna's version better, but that's just me.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

37. I accept that you feel the need to burn music you don't like

but Gainsbourg is a serious, great talent. I geniunely would put him with the Beatles, Brian Wilson and Bowie in my pantheon. Soixante-Neuf has an instrumental backing to rival Pet Sounds.

[RandomKoolzip]

38. Okay, mr. "I hate Guided by Voices!"

Sorry, man, I can't LET GO!!!

Just kidding.

[Whitacre D_WI]

36. About the music...

Gainsbourg's compositions ranged from the banal to the sublime. There were moments of transcendent genius in the music (Le Poinceunneur de Lilas; L'Alcool; L'Anthracite; Les Oubliettes; Un Violon, un Jambon; Intoxicated Man; Elaudenla Teiteia; Bonnie and Clyde; Requiem pour un Con; Initials B.B.; Je T'aime, Moi non Plus; L'Anamour; the whole freaking Melody album... I could go on and on). He also had compositions that were trite, cliched, and formulaic.

The real brilliance is in the lyrics, which you've gotta understand some French to get. I only understand just enough to hear the poop and dick jokes, but that's enough. Okay, on second thought, if you don't like poop and dick jokes, perhaps Serge isn't for you.

In pastis veritas,
Vince

PS -- sorry about the spelling. I'm not so good at this French stuff. And I really don't know the keyboard shortcuts for the accents, so I don't bother. You get the idea.

[MiddleRiverRefugee]

27. He's great - but his daughter (Charlotte Gainsbourg)...

...is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.

[Dogmudgeon]

30. She can ACT, too

Several movies to her credit, and not just bedroom farces.

Check out this act:


père et fille

And she's also a musician, just like her Pa.

--bkl

[TXlib]

34. Wasn't she in "Le Petit Voleur" ("The Little Thief")?

[Laughing Mirror]

40. Charlote Forever!

Thank you Serge and Jane B.