Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes
In this, the first English biography to capture Gainsbourg in all his contradiction and gleeful outrageousness, Simmons tells the fascinating story of the Gallic star. Drawing on hours of new interviews with his intimates-among them Jane Birkin, Sly & Robbie, Marianne Faithfull, and celebrated producer Philippe Lerichomme-Simmons describes in crackling prose the scope of Gainsbourg's achievement while doing full justice to his complicated emotional life. Simmons's work will stand as the...
Search in google:
The first biography in English of the priapic pop genius, drawing on new interviews to capture the debauched heart of the chain-smoking French cultural icon The New Yorker Eleven years ago, when Serge Gainsbourg, the Gitane-puffing demigod of French pop, died, France came to a virtual standstill, and President François Mitterand publicly eulogized the singer, songwriter, and film star as "our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire." Hyperbole, perhaps, but, as Sylvie Simmons's biography makes clear, there was little about the aggressively louche provocateur -- born Lucien Ginsburg -- that wasn't hyperbolic. In the breezy Serge Gainsbourg: A Firstful of Gitanes, Simmons, a veteran British music writer, offers, at last, an English-language glimpse of the best of Serge: his boyhood escape from the Nazis; his understandable affection for tooling around Paris in a Triumph Spitfire with Brigitte Bardot; his porn-watching sessions with Salvador Dali; and his work itself, including the notorious "Je T'Aime, Moi Non Plus," a sweet, hymnlike ballad that featured Gainsbourg and his lover Jane Birkin in stereophonic flagrante delicto. In the past decade, Gainsbourg's international standing has been enhanced by tributes from such indie-rock heroes as Sonic Youth, Luscious Jackson, and Luna. Likewise, the Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso has been embraced by a new generation of English-speaking aficionados looking abroad for new sounds. In Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil, translated from the Portuguese by Isabel de Sena, the erudite Veloso, championed by Beck and David Byrne, tells of the late-sixties rise of tropicalismo
ForewordviiIntroductionixChapter 1Lulu15Chapter 2Death of a Hairdresser21Chapter 3Looking at the Sky27Chapter 4Le Twisteur34Chapter 5Baby Pop41Chapter 6Initials B.B.47Chapter 7Initials J.B.52Chapter 8I Love You, Me Neither57Chapter 9Spirit of Ecstasy63Chapter 10A Fistful of Gitanes71Chapter 11Underneath the Foam79Chapter 12Freggae86Chapter 13Behind the Black Door92Chapter 14The Art of Farting98Chapter 15Stars and Stripes105Chapter 16Suck Baby Suck112Chapter 17Requiem for a Twister118Chapter 18Afterlife131AppendicesSource Notes140Discography146Filmography179About the Author185
\ The New YorkerEleven years ago, when Serge Gainsbourg, the Gitane-puffing demigod of French pop, died, France came to a virtual standstill, and President François Mitterand publicly eulogized the singer, songwriter, and film star as "our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire." Hyperbole, perhaps, but, as Sylvie Simmons's biography makes clear, there was little about the aggressively louche provocateur -- born Lucien Ginsburg -- that wasn't hyperbolic. In the breezy Serge Gainsbourg: A Firstful of Gitanes, Simmons, a veteran British music writer, offers, at last, an English-language glimpse of the best of Serge: his boyhood escape from the Nazis; his understandable affection for tooling around Paris in a Triumph Spitfire with Brigitte Bardot; his porn-watching sessions with Salvador Dali; and his work itself, including the notorious "Je T'Aime, Moi Non Plus," a sweet, hymnlike ballad that featured Gainsbourg and his lover Jane Birkin in stereophonic flagrante delicto.\ In the past decade, Gainsbourg's international standing has been enhanced by tributes from such indie-rock heroes as Sonic Youth, Luscious Jackson, and Luna. Likewise, the Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso has been embraced by a new generation of English-speaking aficionados looking abroad for new sounds. In Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil, translated from the Portuguese by Isabel de Sena, the erudite Veloso, championed by Beck and David Byrne, tells of the late-sixties rise of tropicalismo
