A Very Gainsbourg Christmas YEAR 4
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!
.
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.
Click to viewSpeaking 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!
.