On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the death of Serge Gainsbourg, Europe 1 looks back on his career.
Considered today as a musical genius, he was long misunderstood during his lifetime.
Bertrand Dicale, journalist and author of the book "Tout Gainsbourg", was the guest of Patrick Cohen, Tuesday, to tell the slow rise of "the man with the head of cabbage".
INTERVIEW
On March 2, 1991, Serge Gainsbourg did not wake up, rue Verneuil, in Paris.
Yet his songs still resonate.
Thirty years after his death, "the man with the head of cabbage", revolted and shocking, is now considered a genius of French song.
A status that he did not achieve in his lifetime, between controversy and lack of recognition.
The journalist and author of the book
Tout Gainsbourg
, Bertrand Dicale, explains the reasons for this posthumous success to Patrick Cohen on Europe 1.
Gainsbourg is first of all "a provocative and scandalous character".
Cigarette in his mouth, thin sunglasses on his nose, the artist was not unanimous at the time of his death.
"He is someone who, even in 1991, really continues to exasperate the conservatives," explains Bertrand Dicale.
Today, he is undoubtedly considered one of the greatest French singers, in particular thanks to the success of
La Javanaise
.
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"Nobody hears"
La Javanaise
in 1968
Yet when the song came out in 1968, "nobody heard it", says Bertrand Dicale.
“A few years ago, I spent three long days at the National Library looking in all the dailies and weeklies for a review of the song, not just when it was released but over three months or even four months. nothing found! ”exclaims the journalist.
La Javanaise
was nestled on the B side of the 45 rpm and Bertrand Dicale even admits to having found "a review in a weekly where we talk about the other three songs of this 45 rpm".
This Gainsbourg specialist notes two phases in the artist's audience to explain his late success.
“When Gainsbarre died and you were 18, you liked the kinda punk Gainsbarre, the guy who opens his fly on the TV sets. Then you grow up, so you start listening to great French songs. The generation. of these teenagers who idolized Gainsbarre began to love Gainsbourg and his first albums, "he continues.
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"A music lesson"
Bertrand Dicale also evokes music professionals.
“They realized how much when they listened to Gainsbourg, they heard a music lesson,” he says.
And one of his famous lessons is inspired by English pop music.
Serge Gainsbourg uses female choirs a little differently in some of his legendary songs such as
Initials BB., Bonnie and Clyde
or even in
Comic Strip
.
While recording the title
Ford Mustang
, which was filmed, he stands next to the chorister, at the same microphone.
"He does things which are sometimes almost banal for the time but which he offsets a little bit", explains the journalist.
"The voice of the chorister is mixed at the same pitch as his and it does not come to reinforce a syllable that he would say. She comes to say instead of the syllables which are, in addition, in English. At the time, these shifts appear as oddities or hiccups, "he continues.
Before adding: "Today, that's what makes it great!"