monsieur gainsbourg
On another music trip lately. Profoundly influential for many of the musicians that I love, Serge Gainsbourg is a strange bird and certainly worth a listen. He lived through Nazi occupation of France, fucked Bridget Bardot, wrote songs about teenage girls giving head, and pissed off the Vatican and Bob Marley. His list of offenses is long but he is remembered as a visionary.
My favorite album, and the one you should listen to if you must pick just one, is Histoire de Melody Nelson. It’s about an older man who seduces and starts banging a 15 year old girl after hitting her with his Rolls Royce. Then she dies in a plane crash. Yeah, he really wrote this album and although it’s sorta sick, it’s a masterpiece.
There are string and choral arrangements all mixed up with funky guitar parts and spoken word putting it at the top of my list of amazing auditory experiences. I think it is well worth the brief 28 minutes of your life that it would take to listen all the way through.
