2011 marks the 20th anniversary of the year France’s answer
to Jagger, Bowie and Dylan, all rolled into one smoke cloud of controversy,
died of a heart attack. Two decades on and Serge Gainsbourg is still the best enfant terrible the world has ever had; the
consummate man of taste.
Depending on your introduction to him, Gainsbourg will
either be known for his musical brilliance or for his devilish non-conformism;
with the elegant, lyrical wordplay, ruthless desire for transformation (just
check his 1979 album Aux armes et cætera
- Reggae! Rita Marley! Sly & Robbie!), and daringly eclectic taste in
musical arrangements often being overshadowed by Gainsbarre the “provocateur.”
Alas, nothing succeeds like excess...
And yet Gainsbourg was actually a storyteller before Lou Reed and a model
‘promoting’ rock star before any of them. He changed the French language, he
put English into it; he created words and made it even more beautiful. He was
at once vulgar and sophisticated, a poet and a buffoon, a dandy and a drunkard.
In the honourable tradition set forth by Byron, to judge the style of the man
is to judge the content of the man, and you can only reach the content through
the style. After suffering his first heart attack at 45, Gainsbourg insisted he
be covered in his extremely valuable, highly fashionable Hermès blanket,
declaring that the hospital’s own brand would be “too ugly.” Such was the Perve
of Pop: a champion of exquisiteness even in the face of death.
'Oh, I can’t help quoting you,
Because everything that you said rings true,
And now in my cell,
Well, I followed you.'
