Jane Birkin has died aged 76. Since 1969 and the album she recorded with Serge Gainsbourg, until her last disc produced by Étienne Daho in 2020, the singer had multiplied the hits, sticking, decades after decades, to the influences of the moment, always with subtlety and grace. Our selection.
Recorded by Serge Gainsbourg with Brigitte Bardot, to whom he had promised to write the most beautiful love song of all time, the sulfurous piece was put in the safe at the request of BB. Gainsbourg will re-record it in an even more disturbing version, which will allow Je t’aime moi non plus to rank number one on the British charts.
Who else but Jane Birkin could have played this enumeration of rock stars from pop’s most fertile decade. Custom-written by Serge Gainsbourg, the text was edited at the last minute to include Elvis, who had just passed away, joining Marc Bolan, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and others.
It is certainly in the lyrics of songs he intended for his muse that Serge Gainsbourg revealed himself the most. Especially after their separation. Pearl of the album Baby Alone in Babylone on a par with Les sous chics, Fuir le bonheur for fear that it will run away is one of the most beautiful lyrics of all French song. And its delicate interpretation by Jane Birkin completes to make it unique.
It was in Italy, where she spent a few days, that Jane Birkin heard this melody on the radio one day in 1987. She then decided to telephone Serge Gainsbourg to order a French translation of this success. Which will become, in VF, a real triumph, when Jane Birkin gives her first series of concerts, as part of the Bataclan.
Directed and composed by Étienne Daho, Oh! pardon tu slept, Jane Birkin’s final album, is marked by the mourning of her eldest daughter, Kate Barry, daughter of the British composer. With a moving pen, the bruised mother evokes her visits to the cemetery with a poignant mixture of modesty and vulnerability.
