Why Serge Gainsbourg’s most sensual album is also his darkest
Much of what makes Serge Gainsbourg’s L’histoire de Melody Nelson so controversial is lost on non-French speakers. Let’s not forget that one of the key reasons ‘Je t’aime moi non plus’ wasn’t immediately banned in the UK was that very few people – least of all the teenagers necking off to it in school halls – actually understood what the hell old Serge was talking about.
Today L’histoire de Melody Nelson is regarded as Gainsbourg’s most incendiary and influential album, not to mention one of the greatest albums in French music history. Clocking in at just 28 minutes, the 1971 studio effort is stylish, sensual and completely immersive. Unlike most conceptual albums, however, it’s surprisingly minimalistic.
Gainsbourg seems to have understood that, as in French cooking, the fewer ingredients one puts in a dish, the better they need to be. By hiring the best sessions musicians he could find, producer Jean-Claude Desmarty helped Gainsbourg craft an album far greater than the sum of its parts. Each track features the same basic setup of guitar, bass, drums, vocals and strings, each of which has been arranged to perfectly compliment its neighbour. Jean-Claude Vannier’s intoxicating strings provide a particularly lush example.
Perhaps even more engaging, however, are Gainsbourg’s smokey spoken-word vocals. His words float above the quiet churn of funk drums and undulating bass as though they’re being whispered directly into the shell of your ear. Perhaps that’s why listening to L’histoire feels like sitting on the priest-side of a confessionary booth, although, to be fair, Gainsbourg doesn’t sound at all guilty.
The story he tells us is a Lolitaesque tale of a middle-aged man who goes out driving and accidentally hits a British girl cycling down the same road. He stops the car and gets out to help her, falling madly in love with his victim. As you would expect from a man whose insatiable sexual hunger was matched only by his appetite for cigarettes, the couple spends the next few weeks madly making love, only leaving the bed when they have to. When the 15-year-old decides to leave and fly home to England, however, the man performs an African Cargo Cult ritual in the hope that she’ll return. Sadly, this act of mysticism has the undesired effect of causing her plane to crash.
Serge’s lyrics are, it has to be said, some of the most beautiful and poetic of his entire career. Although to the modern ear they do indeed appear to glorify paedophilia – an accusation that would be levelled against Gainsbourg after the release of ‘Lemon Incest’ years later. It’s worth noting that at the time L’histoire came out, Gainsbourg was in a relationship with Jane Birkin – a woman 20 years his junior. She appears on the album cover dressed only in denim bellbottoms, clutching a stuffed toy to cover her breasts.
Clearly, Gainsbourg had no intention of distracting listeners’ attention from the album’s controversial subject matter. You can revisit L’histoire de Melody Nelson below.
