Mick Harvey covers Serge Gainsbourg’s ‘Chatterton’
Mick Harvey is going on the road to perform the songs of Serge Gainsbourg live, starting this month at London’s Union Chapel on May 27th and Bristol’s Colston Hall on May 28th before an appearance at Primavera Sound on May 30th and Tilburg’s Theatre on June 14th.
In what would seem a one-off unique opportunity to see Mick Harvey and band perform their interpretations of legendary singer, songwriter and poet Serge Gainsbourg’s oeuvre.
The only previous dates were at the invitation of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at a recent ATP festival.
The vocal parts originally sung by Gainsbourg’s muses Jane Birkin, Brigitte Bardot, and Anna Karina are here sung by long-time collaborator Anita Lane.
Other guests on the albums include Bertrand Burgalat, Warren Ellis, Nick Cave, and David McClymont.
Mick Harvey explains: “Translating a great writer is like walking through a minefield and I set myself the difficult task of attempting to keep the places of rhyming, metre and meaning accurate to the originals.
“One or more of these elements is usually dispensed with in the translating of poetry and lyrics, but I did not want to iron out any of Gainbourg’s more aberrant angles or lose any of his especially perverse and peculiar touches.”
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