The greatest Serge Gainsbourg album, according to Charlotte Gainsbourg
It is difficult to think of any musician who had as colossal an impact on the cultural identity of a nation as Serge Gainsbourg did on 20th-century France, forever altering the musical landscape of the country and leaving behind hundreds upon hundreds of utterly iconic songs, along with another musical prodigy in the form of his daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Although Charlotte’s alt and indie pop output is rather distinct from the jazz-fueled French pop carved out by her father, she is still undoubtedly indebted to his musical inspiration in more ways than one. Aside from anything else, it was Serge Gainsbourg who first introduced her to the musical realm, dueting with his daughter on the rather unfortunately named (and themed) track ‘Lemon Incest’ as a 12-year-old in 1984.
Incestuous pop songs aside, though, Gainsbourg has always maintained the inspiration passed down to her by her parents, and even in her most modern, indie-centric output, there are certainly parallels that can be drawn to the innovative discography presided over by France’s archetypal chanteur.
If anybody is well-positioned enough to select the highlights from Serge Gainsbourg’s extensive and illustrious career, then it is his own daughter, who has never lost her appreciation for the sound of her father’s voice. Back in 2018, then, when The Quietus tasked the songwriter with selecting some of her favourite records, there was one of her father’s albums which stood out among all the rest.
“I could have chosen Histoire de Melody Nelson,” Gainsbourg shared, namedropping Serge’s most iconic and arguably greatest work, “but I’ve selected L’Homme a tête de chou just for a change.”
An equally ambitious concept album to the aforementioned Melody Nelson, the 1976 album – with a title translating to ‘The Man with a Cabbage Head’ – has routinely flown under the radar since its release, but that has not stopped it from remaining close to Charlotte Gainsbourg’s heart throughout the years.
Following the rather tumultuous narrative of a middle-aged man falling in love with a shampoo girl from a local barbershop, engaging in an affair together, and eventually murdering the young girl in a jealous haze after catching her in bed with somebody else, the album is essentially a classic French soap opera set to music. For Charlotte, though, “It’s also the voice of my father which I treasure.”
“It’s always hard to have your parents as singers – they have a singer’s voice, and they have their personal, private voice,” she shared. “He hated his voice in the earlier days where he sang much more. This is a real portrait of him,” the songwriter shared of the 1976 masterpiece. “This one for me is really as original and as melodic and modern as Melody Nelson.”
Gainsbourg was only five years old when her father released that particular album, but she still remembers certain aspects of that period in time. “We were living with a nanny,” she recalled. “The cover shot was taken in a garden that wasn’t his. He put L’homme a tête de chou – which was a statue he bought for himself – in the garden and photographed himself with the statue.”
Now, in the wake of Serge Gainsbourg’s untimely death in 1991, L’Homme a tête de chou represents her father’s spirit. “Now the statue is in his house. I have his house, I bought his house, and it’s all I have left of him – all his old objects, his whole environment,” she shared. “I guess it’s very much linked with this album.”
Not only is the 1976 album one of Gainsbourg’s most ambitious, well-rounded projects, then, but for Charlotte Gainsbourg it represents the lasting connection between her and the father who introduced her to the musical world all those years ago.
