Further Thoughts on Serge and Jane
Though I haven’t blogged about Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin for a long time, I have thought about them a lot over the years. I see that the current iteration of my iTunes library has only a small handful of Serge songs, which is pretty vexing as I used to have a more extensive collection.
I have a few stray thoughts.
(1) The clothes are amazing, and in this era people tended to have far smaller wardrobes. Those wonderful jackets and shirts would keep getting worn until they frayed at the edges, which contributed to their beauty.
(2) We’re all supposed to think — boy, Serge is pretty ugly; Birkin is a stunner. But apart from his obvious charisma, I think Serge has a distinguished face. Not handsome, exactly, but certainly interesting. There is a lot there to latch on to. Birkin really is incredibly beautiful (she still is). She also has amazing teeth. The haircuts are very cool. Though I can’t see myself cutting hair, I get the appeal of the job. Hair is strange. Isn’t it essentially fingernails, but distributed differently? I knew a woman who used some kind of horse shampoo, and sure enough she had amazing, glossy locks. How strange.
(3) Who are these people? I never frolic on boats that traverse urban waterways, and I’m thinking I’m missing out. Mental note: spend more time being sun-dappled and wearing corduroy. I actually wear corduroy a fair. I’ve contrived to create myself kind of a corduroy suit, though I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to wear it. My new project will be to be more rumpled. I’ve been wearing this enormous blue parka that makes me look a lot like Grimace.
My friend Hua sent me this amazing Cure cover by Bat for Lashes. Some genius (no, really — some genius) synced the song up with snatches from the anime classic _Vampire Hunter D).
Good grief, she’s even recorded a Eurythmics cover. I think Nora Khan should be made Queen of England.
That’s my favorite Cure song and is one of those songs that is special to me for various reasons and I like hearing it but I think that version kind of sucks. The thing about that song is that it is both kind of depressed and introspective but with this amazing drive. WHen you hit the bridge it’s like the whole song takes off. It’s like the song is a plane. THat other version it’s like the song is a tired, depressed raccoon scruffling around through someone’s compost pile and when the bridge kicks in, it not a plane taking off, but the raccoon finding a couple eggshells.
I think if you are going to redo that song you explore the contrast between the depresssed verse and the bridge.
— cw · Dec 9, 06:17 AM · #
I do love being sun-dappled in corduroy, and I still wear out my clothes like that.
Also, Reihan’s posting AMVs now? This is an even weirder merging of my parallel internet lives than the Obama/Hillary Caramelldamsen video.
— Joseph F. · Dec 9, 07:14 AM · #
I know I’m French and everything, but I’ve always detested those two. Their music, their personalities, their arrogance, her fake accent, his fake everything.
His moment of glory was to burn most of a 500 F bill on live television to show what he had left after taxes after Mitterrand (whom he supported) had been elected. But outside of that great moment, there’s very little I don’t dislike about them.
They remind me of Chateaubriand’s phrase, “Because there are so many who are needy, one must be thrifty with one’s contempt.”
— PEG · Dec 9, 09:55 AM · #