THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,788) Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg — “La Chanson de Slogan”
Before Jane Birkin (see #1,604) and Serge Gainsbourg’s (see #1,366) notoriously banned by the BBC “Je T’Aime… Moi Non Plus”, there was “La Chanson de Slogan”. Scottferguson325 writes that “It’s hard to put into words and sing about the end of a love story, to express what it feels like when a romantic moment ends because another is about to begin, as happens to the protagonists of the film of the same name that bears the title of this beautiful song, performed by the timeless duo Birkin and Gainsbourg.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i83xBsPaN0) Well, Gainsbourg put it into words all right. (Her) “You’re vile, you’re cowardly, you’re vain You’re old, you’re empty, you are nothing” (Him) “Evelyne, you’re being unfair” (https://www.songmeaning.io/lyric-translation/la-chanson-de-slogan)
Ah, Birkin and Gainsbourg. D.M. Edwards notes that they “can be viewed as everything from lecherous slob and naïve posh tart to the cult couple of the late 20th century. Neither of these extremes should obscure his musical experimentation and her role as muse and collaborator.” (https://Q web.archive.org/web/20110629071208/http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/130675-jane-birkin-serge-gainsbourg-jane-birkinserge-gainsbourg/)
La Chanson de Slogan was of course from the ’69 film Slogan, starring Birkin and Gainsbourg. As Film Affinity describes it:
In Venice, forty-old-year old Serge Fabergé has just been given the best advertisement director award. While taking a walk on the Piazza San Marco, Serge meets Evelyn Nicholson, a twenty-three-year-old English beauty. He falls passionately in love with her and, as a result, starts neglecting his charming wife, Françoise, going so far as to consider divorcing her. But having a young fiery insatiable mistress is not without drawbacks…
How did they meet up? The Telegraph tells us that:
In 1968 [Birkin] . . . met Gainsbourg when she auditioned for the film Slogan, in which he was starring. He was 40, and had just broken up with Brigitte Bardot (see #1,366). She later recalled: “I had just separated from John Barry, so I was feeling miserable. I don’t think Serge thought that I was particularly attractive or interesting, and he didn’t seem to take much notice of me. Pierre Grimblat, the director, organised a dinner for us. I was left with Serge, whom I expected to be very arrogant. I was so surprised when I pulled him on to the dance floor and he said, “No, I don’t know how to dance!” Then he walked on my feet, and I thought it was so charming. After that we went off to Venice, and that’s where I fell head over heels.” Jane Birkin and Barry divorced in 1969, and she moved into Gainsbourg’s home . . . in Paris. She called him “strange-looking… degenerate and pure at the same time”. Their relationship was volatile: they became famous for their spats in nightclubs (“because we were pretty plastered both he and I”), and on one occasion she threw a custard pie in his face, then threw herself into the Seine in an attempt to get him to forgive her. In 1969 she appeared with Gainsbourg in two films, Les Chemins de Katmandou and Cannabis . . . . Gainsbourg was working on his album l’Histoire de Melody Nelson, widely regarded as the finest of his career. Jane Birkin performed backing vocals on a couple of tracks, but it was her portrait on the album cover that proclaimed her status as Gainsbourg’s muse. In July 1971 she gave birth to their daughter, Charlotte, who would become a famous actress in her own right.
Cameron Cook adds:
By the time Serge Gainsbourg met and fell in love with the British actress Jane Birkin in 1968, he had already been the poet laureate of French song for a decade, from his early jazz- and Latin-influenced records through the yé-yé boom of the mid-’60s. In that time, Gainsbourg had positioned himself as a somber playboy, known for duets and collaborations in which his brooding demeanor came crashing up against the sensuality of his female counterparts. After writing massively successful pop singles for France Gall (see #36, 1,361) and Brigitte Bardot, Gainsbourg found in Birkin both the youthful innocence of the former and the full-blown sexuality of the latter. Throughout their 12-year relationship, she was able to channel his creative energy into her own unique output.
https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/the-200-best-albums-of-the-1960s/?page=8
As to Serge Gainsbourg, Jason Ankeny tells us:
Serge Gainsbourg was the dirty old man of popular music; a French singer/songwriter and provocateur notorious for his voracious appetite for alcohol, cigarettes, and women, his scandalous, taboo-shattering output made him a legend in Europe but only a cult figure in America, where his lone hit “Je T’Aime…Moi Non Plus” [reached] number 69. Born Lucien Ginzberg in Paris on April 2, 1928, his parents were Russian Jews who fled to France following the events of the 1917 Bolshevik uprising. After studying art and teaching, he turned to painting before working as a bar pianist on the local cabaret circuit. . . . [S]elf-conscious about his rather homely appearance, Gainsbourg initially wanted only to carve out a niche as a composer and producer, not as a performer. [H]e made his recording debut in 1958 . . . [but] his jazz-inflected solo work performed poorly on the charts, although compositions for vocalists ranging from Petula Clark to Juliette Greco to Dionne Warwick proved much more successful. In the late ’60s, he befriended the actress Brigitte Bardot, and later became her lover; with Bardot as his muse, Gainsbourg’s lushly arranged music suddenly became erotic and delirious, and together, they performed a series of duets — including “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Harley Davidson,” and “Comic Strip” — celebrating pop culture icons. Gainsbourg’s affair with Bardot was brief, but its effects were irrevocable: after he became involved with constant companion Jane Birkin, they recorded the 1969 duet “Je T’Aime…Moi Non Plus,” a song he originally penned for Bardot complete with steamy lyrics and explicit heavy breathing. Although banned in many corners of the globe, it reached the top of the charts throughout Europe, and grew in stature to become an underground classic . . . . Gainsbourg returned in 1971 with Histoire de Melody Nelson, a dark, complex song cycle which signalled his increasing alienation from modern culture: drugs, disease, suicide and misanthropy became thematic fixtures of his work, which grew more esoteric, inflammatory, and outrageous with each passing release. Although Gainsbourg never again reached the commercial success of his late-’60s peak, he remained an imposing and controversial figure throughout Europe, where he was both vilified and celebrated for his shocking behavior . . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/serge-gainsbourg-mn0000174822#biography
As to Jane Birkin, John Bush tells us:
Actress, singer, and style icon Jane Birkin had a definitive influence on culture in the ’60s and beyond, starting her career with roles in art house films like Blow-Up and Wonderwall and making a musical mark with her breathy, mysterious vocals on collaborative tracks with Serge Gainsbourg. Her romantic and creative partnership with Gainsbourg yielded classic lounge pop albums like 1969’s Je T’Aime… Moi Non Plus (the title track of which was banned from radio in several countries for being too sexually explicit, but still managed to top the charts in the U.K.) and 1971’s Histoire de Melody Nelson. Birkin had a long and fruitful life in both music and film well after she and Gainsbourg parted ways in 1980, touring regularly and releasing albums of her own songs . . . . Born in London . . . Birkin followed in her mother’s footsteps and began acting at the Kensington Academy in London. . . . she was offered a part in Passion Flower Hotel, a musical produced by James Bond series composer John Barry, and she married him soon after. Birkin’s first film, The Knack…and How to Get It, followed in 1965, while a role in 1966’s Blow-Up made her semi-famous. Her marriage with Barry soon broke up, however, and on a trip to France she met . . . Gainsbourg. The two eventually became romantically entwined . . . . Birkin spent much of the early ’70s working in films. She appeared in a lot of exploitation fare . . . . With help from Gainsbourg, she recorded 1975’s Lolita Go Home and 1978’s Ex Fan des Sixties, gaining hits in France, if not in England. Birkin and Gainsbourg were never married, but were together for 12 years.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jane-birkin-mn0000216846#biography
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