Serge Gainsbourg
born 02 apr 1928 / died 01 mrc 1991
chainsmoker & enfant terrible of the french chanson
songwriter, composer, singer for 40 years
a great creative mind
i love mostly the songs out of the sixties & early seventies
most known is surely Je t'aime moi non plus, sung together with Jane Birkin
Brigitte Bardot missed somehow the chance to be even more known that way,
although there is a version sung together with B.B.,
but however, it's not my favourite song at all
besides you find some chansons, which i like a lot & some fotos
... ah well just a tiny fragment of Serge's entire work & life
unfortunately,
even if my english might be poor
so is my french incomparably miserable
i wish i could understand all of Serge's allusions,
all of the ambiguously nuances, fine paraphrases & hidden hints
french was never my favourite language,
but it looks like i start to love it because of Serge's kind to use it
& it looks also that for the first time in my life i see it as useful to learn it
i'm sure, to bring someone to learn french was not Serge's intention
but can there be a better way to move someone to learn something
than to show the beauty of what one uses in a loving way?
what fascinates me is first of all his pointed way to sing
& further how he turns language into poetry
the texts are not just some words stumbled together to say, what he has to say
he plays with the right words, it was surely fun to write them &
it's fun to hear them, to sing them, to understand them
try this link about Histoire de Melody Nelson, written by John Ballon,
another someone lacking the french language & regretting it the same i do
for more background check out the following links:
*The Official Serge Gainsbourg Site, currently just in french
Serge Gainsbourg site / different versions
a pretty designed homage site
eine seite auf deutsch über Francoise Hardy, eine gute interpretin
*a very comprehensive site with a growing COMPLETED discography & lot of texts
*a big bunch of Serge's song texts, a lot of in WMA format too, some in MIDI - updated may 2002
G@insbourg on the web, although in french a very informative site with pics & whatever more
updated 09 march 2005
original 16 may 2002