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It's been a hell of a year for me, so this year's Christmas Serge icon shows the great French musician heading into his long, slow decline, Gitane cigarette in hand, hunched forward, sliding into oblivion. Which is kind of how I've felt (minus the French cigarettes) for much of the past year.
There's really no reason for it. My business, Paizo Publishing, has had its most successful year ever. The major book release we put out this year (the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook) is still at this point the #1 roleplaying game book on Amazon.com, a spot it's held more or less consistently since it came out in August (so long as we could keep it in print, that is). Work has sent me all over the world this year. Off the top of my head, I've been in New York City, Las Vegas, Baltimore, San Jose, Portland, Minneapolis (thrice), and London, from which I have only just returned. And really, I think all that traveling is a major part of the problem. Last year (when I traveled perhaps twice as frequently, hitting all those places plus Columbus, Denver, Calgary, and more), I swore I wouldn't do it to myself again in 2009. That held for about the first third of the year, after which it was back to the airport on a regular basis.
All of that travel has brought a TON of good things my way. Again, off the top of my head, in the last year I've seen:
• The Winchester Mystery House
• The Rosetta Stone
• The Elgin Marbles
• T-Rex and Triceratops bones
• A stuffed dodo
• Meteorites from Outer Space
• The Original Painting for the cover of Guns, Germs, and Steel
• Huge paintings by Raphael larger than my apartment
• Whitechapel, London and several sites in the Jack the Ripper mystery
• Moctezuma's Throne
• A middle school production based on a Pathfinder adventure
• The Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook burning through two huge print runs in 5 months
I've also had dinner with a science fiction Grand Master for the second year in a row, was in a wedding, started a novel, was a guest of honor at a convention in a foreign country, lost about 20 pounds, watched the Vikings beat the Packers from the press box, and a bunch of other awesome shit that it's shameful that I can't remember at the moment.
So, yeah. All that stuff is awesome. But the travel is leaving me with a huge sense of dislocation that occasionally borders on depression. The dreary annual deluge and sunshine-disappearing-act of Seattle in Wintertime is no doubt adding to the general sense of malaise (which makes it a good thing I'm writing this from snowy—but sunshiny—Minnesota).
Here's hoping I don't fall into a decadent slide like my boy Serge. You'll know the decline has begun if you start seeing me in pictures with even bigger bags under my eyes, about 60 pounds of extra weight, and if I almost always slur my words when I speak. Oh, and if I tell Whitney Houston "I want to fuck you."
Things would have to be pretty bad to say that!
But even during a steep decline of greatness best measured by the space between "Melody Nelson" and "You're Under Arrest," Serge Gainsbourg managed to continue cranking out catchy, insightful music (almost) all the way to the bitter end.
We should all be so lucky.
So, in the spirit of holiday malaise and general decline, this year I've decided to highlight some of my favorite Gainsbourg sounds from what I would identify as the period after the height of his creative powers. I still LOVE each and every one of these songs and unless you're very brave you'll have to take my word that I'm still protecting you from the worst of it. I now own 297 Gainsbourg songs, and believe you me, they are not all golden. Even on Serge's lamest late albums, however, I can usually find one or two songs that I really dig.
This Christmas, as my gift to you, I present some of my favorite Gainsbourg songs from the era of his slow decline. It's a reminder that even if things are going bad, there's still time to create greatness.
Speaking of greatness, remember those great skin flicks they used to play on Showtime and The Movie Channel late at night on weekends back in the day? Stuff like Drive-in Theater and foreign movies in which naked boobs were the only redeeming feature? Remember the Emmanuelle movies?
Turns out Serge Gainsbourg wrote the score and theme song to the third Emmanuelle movie, "Goodbye Emmanuelle," the second sequel to what was at the time the most successful X-rated movie ever imported into the United States. By the mid-80s when it was showing on Skinemax, the sex was pretty tame, but holy god the score was awesome. I distinctly remember seeing this movie as a kid, so it was very likely my first encounter with Serge Gainsbourg. Try not to hold it against me that the clip below contains no nudity.
Speaking of Gainsbourg music scores, one of my absolute favorites is the instrumental theme from the film Cannabis, in which he and girlfriend Jane Birkin play weed dealers. I haven't seen the movie, but I have listened to the soundtrack about a trillion times. There's a great version with lyrics in which Serge talks about Cannabis, but I actually prefer the song without the words, just as he scored it for the film. I like how in the comments to this YouTube video someone wrote "the fact that this guy is not a massive star in America just proves what a massive bunch of fucktards we are." Couldn't have said it better myself! Lastly is "Je Suis Venu te Dire, que J'en Vais" (I Came to Tell You that I'm Going). This is a sad, catchy tune, but I'm including it here because the person who posted it to YouTube thoughtfully included a ton of terrible/awesome photos that illustrate Gainsbourg's decline into the alcoholism that eventually killed him. In this period (or perhaps shortly after it), Gainsbourg started calling himself "Gainsbarre," a sort of alter-ego boozer that had completely taken over. Sad. But hey, great song. Those few of you who managed to make it all the way through the song will no doubt have noticed the sounds of a woman crying over the last few verses. This is in noted contrast to Gainsbourg's hits "Pauvre Lola" and "En Melody!" from the Melody Nelson album that made me fall in love with Serge Gainsbourg in the first place. In fact, instead of a simple link to that song, I think I'll leave you with the video itself. Most of the videos above are from a iTunes mix I call DEEP GAINSBOURG, and they are admittedly "advanced" listening. If you don't get the appeal of the song below (beyond Birkin's annoying laugh, that is), I cannot help you. Whew! Well, listening to all of that and posting these videos has made me feel a lot better than I did when I started writing this post, that's for sure. Another victory for SERGE GAINSBOURG! Have a merry Christmas, everyone! .
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Here's the complete playlist from the PaizoCon Mix Challenge. I threw down the gauntlet to Paizo.com's awesome online community, asking those who attended PaizoCon to put together a 4-song mix to share with other audiophiles at the convention.
The rules were simple:
1. 4 songs.
2. All songs 5 minutes or under.
3. Deep cuts will be better received than mainstream stuff everyone has heard.
4. No fruity elf music or background soundtrack songs to play while RPGing.
That #4 caused some cognitive dissonance with the gamers involved, but after all was said and done everyone followed the instructions and we had a great time. The combined tracks went something like 3 hours in total, with more than 40 songs. I think next year more people will participate, and I'll probably reduce it to 2 songs per person. The event ended at about 2:00 AM, and everyone was tired by the time we finished (though the homebrew "Pathfinder" beer and Maker's Mark certainly helped pass the time).
Anyway, here's the complete track listing, in no particular order:
Marie Laforet: Marie Douceur - Marie Colère
Nightwish: Wishmaster
Serge Gainsbourg: Ballade De Melody Nelson
Ween: Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?
Blackstar: Thieves in the Night
Buddy Guy: Feels Like Rain
Clutch: The Yeti
Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley: All Night
Depeche Mode: I Feel You
Devo: Automodown/Spacegirl Blues
Dr. Zeus: Kangana
Garbage: Vow
Joe Darwish: The Ken Song
Les Claypool featuring Henry Rollins: Delicate Tendrils
Nightwish: Elvenpath
Nightwish: Nemo
Os Mutantes: El Justiciero
Rebirth Brass Band: Do Whatcha Wanna
Robert Earl Keen: Mr. Wolf & Mamabear
Steve Earle: Lungs
TV on the Radio: Wolf Like Me
Amorphis: Sampo
The Atomic Fireballs: The Man With the Hex
Butthole Surfers: Theme from Underdog
Cold War Kids: Saint John
doubleDrive: Tattooed Bruise
doubleDrive: Inside Out
Gang of Four: Guns and Butter
Gogol Bordello: Sally
Green Day: Peacemaker
Guns N' Roses: Riad N' the Bedouins
Iron Maiden: Montsegur
mclusky: Lightsabre Cocksuckin' Blues
Nine Inch Nails: Where is Everybody?
Sleater Kinney: One Beat
Smashing Pumpkins: Ava Adore
Steve Earle & the Dukes: F the CC
Fantomas: The Godfather
Oingo Boingo: Yodel
Neko Case: This Tornado Loves You
Julie Fowlis: Hug Air A'Bhonaid Mhoir
Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit
Susumu Hirasawa: Dropfilled with Memories
And, in the spirit of Music Mondays, here are YouTube links to my four submissions:
Marie Laforet: Marie Douceur - Marie Colère Serge Gainsbourg: Ballade de Melody Nelson (embedding disabled by request, bastards)
Ween: Mister, Could You Please Help My Pony?
Os Mutantes: El JusticeroSlimming it down to two next year. The assembled audience really dug the Mutantes track and the Paint it Black cover, but I think old Serge may have sailed about 30 meters over everyone's head. People seemed to dig the baseline, though, which is something. Like all of PaizoCon, the Mix Challenge was a hell of a lot of fun, and something I now look forward to on an annual basis. . PS: I'm gearing up to relaunch Paperback Flash, my experimental book collecting/reading blog some time this week. I scanned in a bunch of new covers late last week, and should have some thoughts up very shortly. Do keep an eye out for that! .
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American Idol was so much better when it was French and when it was 1965.
Here's France Gall singing "Poupee de Cire, Poupee de Son," a song written for her by (of course) Serge Gainsbourg for the Eurovision Song Contest.
Gainsbourg's other France Gall song (which I actually like better than this one), won the contest. It's called "Les Sucettes," and it's basically the song of a 15-year-old girl giving head to a lollipop. The story goes that Gall didn't realize all of the double entendres in the song (which discusses how she likes to kiss lollipops until the liquid runs down her throat) and was furious with Gainsbourg for tricking her into signing it. Whatever, it's a great song, and the creep factor of the much older, lecherous Serge Gainsbourg wolfishly singing a duet with Gall is too priceless to ignore. Sadly, the moron who uploaded the video to YouTube doesn't allow embeds, so you'll have to follow a link to check it out yourself. Here's the duet, and if you still don't believe me that the song is really about blowjobs, I encourage you to check out this slightly later version of Frace Gall singing the song alone. There is NO WAY she didn't realize how filthy the song was by the time she filmed this. My love for Gainsbourg will never die. Yours should begin today. .
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For three years running I've been sharing my favorite Serge Gainsbourg YouTube videos with the readers of Lemuria Press as a special Christmas treat, and despite weather catastrophes that have disastrously interrupted my normal holiday plans, the tradition continues apace! I discovered Gainsbourg about five years ago, and I've probably listened to him every day since. Gainsbourg recorded from the late 1950s to the mid 1980s, when his lifetime of alcohol abuse and hard living finally caught up to him. His material spans a huge variety of musical styles, from traditional French chanson to 60's pop-inspired Ye-Ye hits. He penned songs that won the Eurovision Song Contest, bedded a bevy of beautiful maidens despite being among the world's ugliest celebrities, and exuded class in the way he dressed, the way he acted, and the way he purred his lecherous lyrics into the mike. Eventually his lifestyle caught up to him and he became a parody of himself, but even in his decline he was good for a few laughs, like when he told an on-the-rise Whitney Houston that he'd "like to fuck her" on live TV.
Ah, good times.
Because I've been at this a while, now, I've covered most of the classic Gainsbourg must-sees, such as his duet with Brigitte Bardot for Bonnie and Clyde and his beautiful, sexy rendition of 69 Anee Erotique with Jane Birkin sprawled across his piano. If you haven't seen those pivotal performances, do take the time to click on the links and check them out. Along with Gainsbourg's potentially-best-ever concept album Histoire de Melody Nelson, those tracks represent Serge at his most accessible, at the height of his game.
My itunes library currently contains 262 Gainsbourg songs (he wrote for other performers as well as for himself and the handful of beautiful women he wanted to get into his bed), and I'm afraid the sickness in my case has gone quite deep. There is no coming back for me, so for this year's Gainsbourg Christmas I thought I'd pull some of Serge's less-well-known material. I've tried to keep things visually compelling, too, so while I was sorely tempted to include several incredible songs before a still background, I'm forcing myself to focus on videos with interesting moving pictures.
I'll begin with some older tracks, which represent Serge in the late 1950s and 1960s. This music is probably nothing like what you listen to, but it has a haunting quality that transcends the ability to understand the French lyrics. And nobody, I mean nobody, makes smoking cigarettes look cooler than Serge Gainsbourg. I give you Gainsbourg's first mega-hit, "La Javanaise".
The next video is "Qui Est 'In,' Qui Est 'Out'," which for my money ought to be the theme song for Project Runway. I may have posted this video previously, but it's one of my absolute favorites thanks to the wacky French dancers and Serge's Susanna Hoffs eye-movements. A glorious classic.
As an aside, if you're interest in seeing how decadent, shitty, and bloated Gainsbourg became in the 80s (and if the Whitney Houston video didn't sell that fact enough for you), take a quick look at this version of the same song, 22 years later. Ugh.
Let's end on a high note this year with "Initials BB," featuring background vocals from one of Gainsbourg's great loves, Brigitte Bardot (the song is titled for her).
If you like that one, there's a fascinating 6-minute "making of" video from the 1968 studio creation of that song. It's thrilling to see Serge at work!
And that's it for this year's Gainsbourg Christmas. I apologize for the "advanced course" nature of this year's offering, but if you've been following along since I started you should be getting the gist of it by now.
Merry Christmas, everyone! We miss you, Serge Gainsbourg!
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Last year I inaugurated a brand new tradition here at Lemuria Press, a glorious presentation of video clips featuring my artistic hero and personal Jesus, Serge Gainsbourg.
You see, I don't really believe in the son-of-God Jesus (or God himself, for that matter), but reverence is important in life, and it's good to have heroes to look up to. Sometimes those heroes are drunken geniuses bent on a decades-long streak of self-destruction from cigarettes and alcohol, but no one is perfect (particularly, it must be said, if they are French).
So, once again and in the spirit of the holiday season I present a handful of awesome clips featuring my favorite Tainted Saint, Mr. Serge Gainsbourg.
First up I give you the title track from Gainsbourg's undisputed masterpiece, Histoire de Melody Nelson. In case your relatives had the poor foresight not to purchase this for you for Christmas, head on over to Amazon.com and pick it up yourself with some of that mad Jesus money they gave you instead. Here's why:
That song has played on my iPod more than 100 times, and will be the lead track on the CD I'll have handed out at my funeral. Melody Nelson is about a middle-aged French guy who accidentally hits a 14-year-old English girl with his Rolls Royce. He takes her unconscious body back to his place and nurses her back to health after which they fall in love, have sex, and live happily ever after (until Melody dies in a plane crash headed back to England). Gainsbourg is not going to win any humanitarian awards, but Histoire de Melody Nelson is probably the greatest concept album ever recorded. You owe it to yourself to pick it up. While listening, have a cigarette on me. It's not good for you, but neither is shacking up with 14-year-olds, so I suggest just going with the flow. Now, if you've never heard of him you might think 'what a dick." And, honestly, you'd pretty much be correct in that assessment. Even Serge himself thought so, and here's a great tune he whipped out for a shitty movie that proves it. The song is called "Requiem pour un Con," which roughly translates to "requiem for an asshole." It's one of my favorites, and it's too bad the movie only used a verse or so and the clip is so short. Still, it's got all the brilliance of Gainsbourg wrapped up into one brief clip: Timeless. Gainsbourg's best music was recorded 30–40 years ago, but it sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday. I am utterly entranced by it, and own more than 180 of his songs. Actually, thanks to some wonderful gifts from my friends and family this Christmas, I added 30 new songs I've never heard before. It's going to be a good music listening month for me. Gainsbourg was always on the cutting edge of music. He started as a cabaret pianist in the tradition of his father, and released a couple albums of straight up (but utterly brilliant) songs in the old French chanson style. Shortly thereafter, Serge discovered jazz, then rock, then reggae, and even had a fairly regrettable dalliance with early rap at the very end of his career. In the 60s, rock-and-roll swept France thanks mostly to the Beatles, and a new form of music called ye-ye developed, often using English and American rhythms and even lyrics mixed in with a distinctly French character. Not one to be daunted, Gainsbourg jumped into this new music, writing top hits for a number of young ingenues including France Gall, Brigitte Bardot, and others. Here's a song from that era, appropriately titled "Chez les Ye-Ye." And here's one of his famous collaborations with Brigitte Bardot. What strikes me about this one is that it sounds like it could have been released last week. Dig the sweet sci-fi costumes! Gainsbourg and Bardot hooked up for a while, but his most famous love was Jane Birkin, the English actress who played Melody Nelson and who sang along on the first clip of this Christmas post. The two created a lot of great music together, but perhaps one of their best creations was their daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg, who is currently a huge film star in France and who's had some success in movies that have played in America (most recently in Michel Gondry's phantasmagoric The Science of Sleep. Charlotte looks almost exactly like a combination of Serge and Jane, which of course she is. Serge drank himself to death in the 80s (but not before telling Whitney Houston " I want to fuck you" on live TV), but Jane is carrying on his tradition. Her newest album, 5:55, is like a collision ground of Erik Mona influences. The music is by French supergroup Air, and the lyrics are by British pop-god Jarvis Cocker. The result is my pick for the best album of 2007. Here's Serge's daughter in the title track of that album, "5:55": And that's it for this year's Serge Gainsbourg Christmas spectacular. I'm off to listen to my 200+ song Gainsbourg collection. Perhaps I'll finish by the first day of 2008. One thing's for sure. On New Year's Eve, I'll be raising a glass to my Tainted Saint, Mr. Serge Gainsbourg. Bravo!
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