Jane Birkin's death, on July 16, 2023, at the age of 76, struck her fans with deep sorrow. Separation is difficult despite the eternity of the songs. The melodies repeat themselves in my head, stubborn. While watching documentaries and listening to interviews, I learn more and more about Jane-Serge, about Jane-Jane. A deep well.
The article will only be a small part of it, although it will focus only on the musical world of the artist who was not only a singer but also an actress, screenwriter, director - film and theater, writer - who published an autobiography based on her intimate diary in two volumes (1), a poet, and a social and political activist.
For more than fifty years, almost sixty, Jane was present in the artistic landscape of France As a fashion icon (especially at first), as an actress and of course as a singer. And if she was the unforgettable muse of Serge Gainsbourg, she knew how to reinvent herself after his death. While continuing to sing his songs and immortalize his memory without ceasing, she discovered surprising, striking and sensitive talents of her own.
From the moment she set foot on French soil, she felt free and liberated. Her good fortune brought her together with Serge and all of France. The French embraced her into their arms and she returned their love, for life and for death. Jane became a cultural icon, a national treasure, a legend. French.
I love you, neither do I.
From Brigitte to Jane, the birth and disappearance of a scandalous poem
The scandalous love song, “I Love You Too, Don’t I,” which launched Jane as a singer and made Serge a fortune, was originally intended for Brigitte Bardot. Serge was proud and excited when he had an affair with the famous sex bombshell, who was then married to the German millionaire showman Gunter Sachs.
Brigitte asked Serge to write for her the most beautiful love song he could imagine. Thus, “I Love You Too, But I Don’t” was born in one night and was recorded as a duet between Brigitte and Serge. The star did not feel so comfortable publicly revealing her passion for the composer with the usual moans, but under his encouraging gaze, she performed the task beautifully with her sensual voice.
The couple in love did not take into account the husband's reaction. Gunter Sachs was furious and threatened Brigitte with ruining her career if she released the duet. Serge, who was acting like a gentleman at the time, immediately granted his lover's request and removed the song from the album that was to be released a few days later.
Jane appears in Serge's life
Brigitte broke up with Serge after a passionate affair of a few weeks, and he sank into depression and contemplated suicide. Two years had passed since the recording of the song in 1967, and it seemed that the fate of the duet was sealed. But in Serge's life, the mourner unexpectedly burst in, making him forget the sorrow of being abandoned by the most beautiful woman in the world.
A 21-year-old Englishwoman, Jane Birkin, an actress, came to Paris to star in Pierre Grimblat's film "Slogan" alongside Serge. The lovers in the film had difficulty forming a proper relationship in real life. Serge frowned at the young Englishwoman, who was horrified by the unpleasant reception. "What a scoundrel, what a scoundrel" (Le salaud, le salaud), she muttered in a pronounced British accent that became one of her hallmarks, along with her familiar and endearing French mistakes.
Jane was in the same dramatic situation of dealing with unrequited love after her husband, musician John Barry, whom she married against her father's wishes at the age of 17, divorced her for another woman, took off for the US, and left her alone with a soft baby girl, Kate.
Jane, only 21, cried a third of the time during the filming of “Slogan” and Serge couldn’t understand how she allowed herself to mix her private life with the script. Jane sobbed about her forced separation from John Berry, how she couldn’t hold on to him, tortured herself. Intolerable behavior! Why was this dumb Englishwoman, who barely says two words in French, cast instead of the perfect Lisa Branson? Serge thought.
Jane read mockery and contempt in Serge's eyes, but Pierre Gambellat, the director, spoke to her heart and told her that she was mistaken. Serge is nothing more than a shy man who hides his discomfort under a mask of cynicism. Pierre Gambellat was not satisfied with talk and invited Serge and Jane to dinner at Régine's club, Le New Jimmy's, 124 Boulevard Montparnasse. A meal for three, apparently, but Pierre, in his great cunning, disappeared and never returned, leaving Jane and Serge alone. This is what is called going for the money.
An evening that lasted and went down in history
The events of this evening are carved in marble. Jane dragged Serge onto the dance floor and he stepped on her feet during the slow dance. Charming, he doesn't know how to dance! Jane realized then that Pierre Gramblatt was right, Serge's sarcasm was meant to cover up shyness and she was taken aback.
It was Serge's turn to drag her, this time from restaurant to restaurant, from club to club. The mythical "Rasputin", a restaurant, club and disco, near theShanez Eliza Where Serge, thanks to his father, Joseph Ginzburg, a pianist in bars and cabarets, born in Kharkov, got to know all the elderly musicians, “Madame Arthur”, the transvestite club in Pigalle who kissed Serge affectionately and finally the benefactor invited his protégé to drink champagne at the Grand Market in the heart of Paris, La Halle, together with the butchers and greengrocers who were about to start their work day, a piece of history!
Serge was a true knight in those days, and so he offered Jane to accompany her to the small hotel, “Esmeralda,” near the Sorbonne, where she lived with her one-year-old daughter, Kate. Jane said no, and Serge took her, in response to her refusal, to the Hilton Hotel, to his permanent suite there. In the elevator, Jane panicked, it was too fast for her. She asked to go to the bathroom for a few minutes, and when she came out, she saw the drunk Serge lying on his back, sound asleep. It was five in the morning. Oh, what luck, pure as snow, she returned to the small hotel “Esmeralda.” Not for long. In romantic Venice, she fell, robbed.
From an innocent romantic night to a bold erotic song
Thus was born a twelve-year partnership that combined love, raising children (Charlotte was born in July 1971) and creativity under one roof in the mythical house on rue de Verneuil. And above all, in the field of artistic collaboration, a new version of Brigitte Bardot's song. From an innocent romantic night to a daring erotic song.
Mireille Darc whispered to Serge the idea of re-recording the scandalous song. Serge accepted the offer and Jane, who feared competition from the legions of other beautiful singers who surrounded Serge, immediately agreed to do it.
Jane sang an octave higher than before. During the recording, Serge stretched his hand forward in the air and scrunched his face to warn Jane. He was horrified when she gasped for breath, fearing she wouldn't be able to go any higher, but he was nonetheless interested in that angelic tone, reminiscent of a choirboy's voice.
The idea of recording Bardot's song a second time was a stroke of good fortune for Serge and Jane. It was enough for the first notes to be played for everyone to know how to continue. The song became famous throughout the world. The Vatican, which condemned it in its official newspaper, contributed greatly to this, and as a result, Italian radio stations banned it from being played. In Italy, the expression "making love in the Gainsbourg style" took root, which filled the composer with undisguised pride.
And Jane? She was already used to scandals, as in Antonioni's film “Blow-up,” filmed in London in 1966, she appeared completely nude with Gillian Hills. Scandal after scandal, “Jane, Blow-up, Birkin,” they called her in England, and now Jane, “I love you, don't I, Birkin.”
The beginning of the seventies bodes well. An excellent starting point for the lovers whose musical collaboration grew stronger. Serge declared that the song owed its success to Jane, much more than to him, and added in front of her astonished eyes that the first version (a hint at Bardot's performance) would not have achieved the same result. Jane was overjoyed.
Jane B.
Body of missing girl found on roadside
This song was composed by Serge, and this time especially for Jane, next to "I love you, but I don't," and in it too, the muse's voice rises and rises, resembling that of a choirboy.
In contrast to “I Love You Too, Don’t I,” which celebrates love at its best and at the height of pleasure, in the song “Jane B,” death takes the place of eroticism, and both are connected and identified with the twisted soul of the murderer. Between the loins of the missing girl, who is eventually found lying on the side of the road, is a knife stuck: “Your murderer’s knife is in the hollow of your loins.”
This phrase, “your killer’s knife in the crook of your loins,” appears only in the written version of the song and not in its music videos. In the sung version, it is replaced by the phrase “a flower of blood in her hand,” a poetic allusion to the rape and murder of the girl: In French, “to deflower a virgin” is déflorer, a verb that literally means “to pluck the flower,” so that “a flower of blood” alludes to the blood of loss of virginity in the circumstances of rape and to the blood of stab wounds in the circumstances of murder. The brutal formulation, “your killer’s knife in the crook of your loins,” not the softened one, “a flower of blood in her hand,” corresponds with the description of sex in the duet “I love you too, don’t I” where the knife of death replaces the blade of love:
Jane B:
Your assassin's knife
In the hollow of your back
Jane B.:
Your killer knife
In the hollow of your loins
I don't love you either:
je vais et je viens entre tes reins
I love you, neither do I:
I'm coming and going between your loins.
Earlier drafts of the poem include unbearable descriptions of the rape and murder of the girl on the side of the road, a torn, dislocated skirt, strangulation, a slit throat (2). Serge erased, shelved, rewrote, in favor of the artistic refinement of a criminal, trivial, vile, and despicable event.
Jane's voice is indeed heart-wrenching, angelic, heavenly, contrasting with the hellish agony of the victim before his death, beautifully adapted to the melody that Serge took from Prelude No. 4, Opus 28, by Frédéric Chopin. As for the lyrics, Gainsbourg relies directly on the introduction to the poem that concludes Vladimir Nabokov's novel “Lolita.” Jane Birkin describes herself, in words that Gainsbourg wrote for her, as Jane B., blue-eyed, devilish-haired, twenty-one to twenty-two years old, a description as police-like as the hero of Nabokov's book, Humbert Humbert, gives the details of Lolita, the nickname of Dolores Hayes:
Jane B:
Reporting:
Blue eyes
Brown hair
Jane B
English
Female
Age : entre vingt et vingt et un
Learn to draw
Lives with his parents
Jane B.:
Description:
Blue eyes
Devilish hair
Jane B.
England
Gender: Female
Age: Between twenty and twenty-one
Studying painting
Lives with her parents
Melody Nelson
Jane in Lolita dress
What to do after the huge success of “I Love You Too”? The financial means it made available to him allowed Serge to fulfill his dreams, literally. The new album, “The Story of Melody Nelson,” was born from a daydream that combines a classical style with psychedelic rock. Gainsbourg turned to the renowned composer and arranger Jean-Claude Vannier, who also signed the album, and together with an excellent team, in a good atmosphere that combined work with pleasure, they gave birth to the project. “The Story of Melody Nelson” was released in 1971.
“The Story of Melody Nelson” is an innovative concept album in the “progressive rock” style, presenting, under the strong influence of Nabokov in the novel “Lolita,” a love affair between a 42-year-old man, the son of Gainsbourg, and a 14-year-old girl, almost 15, whom Jane’s boyish appearance allowed her to embody.
Jane Birkin, who played Melody Nelson, was already 24 years old, ten years older than Melody Nelson, and hid her second pregnancy (Charlotte had been growing in her womb for three months) under her favorite stuffed animal, with Serge wearing a red wig on her head. The album was written, as mentioned, inspired by “Lolita” but at the same time for Jane. Her full name was Jane Mallory Birkin – Melody like Mallory. And Nelson because Jane’s father, David Birkin, was an officer in the Royal Navy and admired Admiral Nelson. Jane’s parents came from central London, like Melody Nelson, and that’s where their daughter Jane was born.
Serge did what he wanted, but the success he and Jane expected did not come immediately. The album was not properly appreciated when it was released, selling only twenty thousand copies and becoming a cult only twenty years later. Twelve years after its release, however, it received the “Golden Record” award based on one hundred thousand sales, and Serge presented it as a gift to Jane. She contributed her character and said a few words, but it was Serge who performed all the songs. Serge always knew how to appreciate Jane’s large share in their joint successes.
Today, the album is considered a prominent work and some even consider it the pinnacle of Gainsbourg's work. His influences on many musicians, even outside of France, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, are numerous. The poetic texts inspired by José-Maria de Heredia and Arthur Rimbaud, the sounds soaked in melancholy, meticulously combined, deep basses, bizarre guitars and somewhat oriental violins – all of these have had their effect.
An erotic musical story, seven songs, defined in its time as a “symphonic song in the pop era,” a musical version of the novel “Lolita.” The plot opens and ends with an accident. A tormented man crashes his Rolls-Royce into the car of a red-haired English girl. His love for her opens up infinite horizons in his dreary existence.
After losing her virginity in the “Cleopatra” room of a luxurious old hotel, a Baroque palace, Melody Nelson lost her life when the Boeing 707 that was returning her to England crashed. The man lost his reason to live and, as a result, his sanity.
Like the Papuans in New Guinea, who prayed for the fall of the “big birds” in order to enjoy their contents, which they saw as a gift from the gods, part of what is known as the “cargo cult,” the speaker hopes for another plane crash that will, according to his mystical belief, bring him back Melody Nelson (3).
The album, like the clip presented above, examines the illusion of eternal, unchanging love, which preserves its initial passion, against the reality in which even lolitas inevitably lose their youth and in which life together, like Serge, erodes romance and eroticism. Melody Nelson's death on the album seems inevitable because only in this way can the freshness of the experience be frozen. But the burden of guilt and other frustrations of life's prison is carried on the back until the end of the journey.
In real life, Gainsbourg stretched the age gap even further than in his fictional story. In 1985, the 56-year-old musician began an affair that lasted until his death, six years later, with a 16-year-old fan from whom he received a long, well-worded letter. Clemence Meyer, the same age as Serge and Jane's daughter Charlotte, now happily married and the mother of two children, describes in her autobiography her relationship with Serge as generous, considerate, and shy (4).
Dee doe dee
The androgynous look
In 1973, Serge and Jane presented a new album, “Dee Do Dee,” whose eponymous song celebrates the androgynous appearance.
Jane's radiant smile of triumph, her transformed body and her graceful movements in service of Serge's playful words and sweeping melody do not betray in any way the agony of her adolescence in the face of the wickedness of the girls at the boarding school where she wanted to live. Jane told Serge how much she suffered from the fact that the other girls grew beautiful breasts while she remained flat like a boy. At the age of 12, she was sent to a boarding school on the Isle of Wight, only girls, and evil among them ruled. In the shower, Jane received comments such as: "Still nothing, 99?" Jane was called by her room number and the girls leaned over the partition to mock her, half girl, half boy. The glove and the soap were not enough to cover her shame, that's how she felt in those years. The girl wanted to be like everyone else. This is the story of the birth of the song "Dee Doe Dee."
At the age of 16, she finally left boarding school, but she pushed herself to do everything she could to inflate her breasts until Serge freed her from her complex. He liked her the way she was. “I’ve had beautiful women before, but Jane is the most beautiful of all,” he declared in front of the television cameras, “How lucky I am!” A second hint, of course, that Jane surpasses Brigitte in his eyes, for whom he once wanted to die. The child-woman suited him, in the end, much better than the mature woman, and Serge was therefore able to glorify the androgynous look with great skill. The attraction to lolitas existed in him even before he enthusiastically read Nabokov.
Jane embodied the ideal of the woman-girl for a time. The cover photo of the album “Dee Do Dee,” taken by the star photographer (Signora, Moreau, Delilah, Deneuve, Bardot, lots of Bardot), Sam Levin, is truly astonishing.
Former Sixties fan
Celebrating London
Jane was the partner of a famous composer and made good use of her status, with lightness, playfulness and grace. It's not a big deal if she doesn't succeed as a singer, she answered the skeptics, her career as an actress is strong and viable. But she succeeded, above and beyond. And after separating from Serge and after his death.
The song “Former Sixties Fan”, a huge hit, has become a classic. It is a pure musical salute from Serge Gainsbourg to “Swinging London”, a city that became the capital of pop and fashion for a decade. Serge only had to cross the English Channel (literally “the sleeve”) and he was immersed in the crazy energy of the city from which modernity emanated, nourished by it. And it was present not only in the studios but also on the streets. The influence of British music of the sixties is, indeed, very noticeable in his melodies.
Jane, who came directly from that cheerful city, embodied the cultural excitement and ease of the British look, jeans and a white shirt, not forgetting the straw basket, so different from the look of the French singers of the time. Jane entered the hearts of the French who saw her every Saturday night on television, enjoyed the popularity she gained and did not think of living anywhere else.
And who else but her to perfectly salute the rock of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Moody Blues, to ask where all those idols are, to mourn the disappearance of Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, J.Nice Joplin, Otis Redding, Jim Morrison, Elvis, with the cheerful melody slightly sweetening the bitter pill. And the French audience hummed with nostalgia the tragic list of sexy Anglo icons.
Jane's perfect performance does not betray the difficulties that delayed the song for six months. Jane, to the dismay of Serge and the rest of the production team, failed to respect the rhythm of the first line of the song and the work was stopped. How is it that Jane, who works wonders in high octaves, does not understand the rhythm, Serge was annoyed and Jane was in tears. The family went on a pleasant vacation in the country house that Jane had purchased in Normandy and the recording continued with greater success in September.
The eponymous album that included the song was released in 1978. The end of the seventies heralded the separation of Serge and Jane, who could no longer tolerate his drunkenness, betrayals and violence, no longer a puppet in the service of a tyrant. September 1980 – the mythological couple was no more. Without, paradoxically, destroying the magic of their collaboration, which, on the contrary, only grew stronger and more perfect.
The Serge-Jean magic is alive and kicking despite the separation
Serge Gainsbourg did not create Jane Birkin, Gainsbourg created Birkin the singer. Birkin the singer is him and on her, as a mouthpiece for his melodies and lyrics, he cast a significant part of his fantasies. Jane admired his talents and was grateful. For all these reasons (plus the emotional connection, of course), he continued to be present in her life even after their separation. It is quite a rare situation in which couples who have parted ways continue a harmonious and successful artistic collaboration.
And not only that, Serge's songs of pain surpassed their predecessors in power. In 1983, "Escape from Happiness lest it escape," a song from an album that was their diary of separation, was the first in a series that flowed from Serge like a fountain of blood. Jane knew that he was giving her his licked wounds so that she could continue to heal them with her performances. She was his female side, his B-side, and she had to sing the highest, the most complicated, the most fragile to soften his suffering. She had to sing the most wonderful she could to express his feelings. She had to do it for him as well as for her. That's what she said. And the song "Escape from Happiness lest it escape" - there is no better illustration of her words than Jane's, who understood Serge's moves later.
A breakup album called Baby Alone in Babylone, with a successful eponymous song, was Jane's first "gold record." Two years later, the Gainsbourg-Birkin couple continued to thrill the hearts of the French with another iconic song, "What."
The story of the song is different because Serge did not sign the melody, only the lyrics. Jane was in Italy to film a film, with Vittorio Gassman, admittedly, but a bad film. She was asked to sing the theme song for the film and was introduced to another song by two of its Italian authors. The melody captured her and she called Serge and asked him to write lyrics for it. The result was “What,” which, like “running away from happiness lest it escape,” spoke of their love story that ended but with a more exposed and greater pain. And as before, Jane did her best to honor the lyrics. “Of our deceased love nothing will remain but ashes,” Jane began, and Serge cried: the performance was perfect!
what
A hit that heralds a new career and a new woman
Serge's version of the Italian melody became a hit. Jane was offered to go on stage at the Bataclan to perform in front of an audience. At the age of forty, her career was reaching new heights. When she arrived, trembling and shaking, the hall was empty. But the reason for this was not a lack of interest. Quite the opposite. Director Agnes Varda held the audience at the door because she wanted to film them as they entered the hall for her biographical film “Jane B. by Agnes V.” The other performances were also full. Serge came to everyone and lit a lighter, as the other fans did, as was customary in those days.
Jane sang for the first time on stage with an orchestra. She cut her hair and dressed in men's clothes to focus attention on Serge's words and the way he sang them. Jane changed, she was no longer a Lolita. A new woman was born, no longer needing the signs and accessories of sexy femininity, more independent, Jane as if separated from her parents.
Serge did not initially perceive the change that had taken place in Jane, but when he did, he encouraged her in her new path and the collaboration continued until Serge's death from a heart attack on March 2, 1991. Jane promised him a tour of concerts throughout France that would perpetuate his memory and kept her promise. A strong and difficult experience for her and the audience that ended at the famous festival, "Le Francopoli de La Rochelle".
(Les Francofolies de La Rochelle). At the end of the performance, Jane tearfully placed the microphone on the floor after performing the song “I Came to Tell You I’m Going” and left the stage.
Winter children
Oh! Sorry, you were asleep.
After Serge
The audience thought Jane would stop singing. She thought so too, she cried so much. Wouldn't it be a relief if she stopped? But, nevertheless, she continued to perform in France and around the world until she felt the need to renew herself.
Maybe it was time to “betray” Serge with other composers and lyricists after she had done everything she could for him? She had already released two tribute albums for him: “Versions Jane,” songs he intended for others in her own performance this time, and “Arabesque,” an oriental arrangement of his songs.
“Jane’s Versions,” released in 1996, is an album of Jane’s interpretations, reworked, of songs that Serge had written for others. The most famous of these is “The Mud” (La gadoue), originally sung by Petula Clark.
“Arabesque” is a live album recorded at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in 2002. The show was born from a meeting between Jane and Algerian violinist and arranger, Djamel Benyelles, and the two decided to work together. Benyelles adapted songs that Gainsbourg had written for Birkin into a North African style and she performed with them all over the world, London, New York, Tokyo, Jakarta, Israel, Ramallah, Gaza. The mix of styles, French-Middle Eastern, also proved to be a huge commercial success and earned Jane another “gold record”.
What more would you ask of me, Serge, and there is none, and there is none yet? Then Jane wondered if the audience would accept her without Serge. Her artistic director encouraged her to go this way, and then she gathered courage and asked various producers, French and foreign, to compose songs for her. Thus were born three more albums outside of Serge's world, in collaboration with other creators:
1999, À la légère, “Lightly”
2004, Rendez-vous, “Meetings”
2006, Fictions, “Fictions”
Two years later, Jane surprised with her own album. The singer added the title of lyricist to her list. Jane's texts turn out to be poetic, enigmatic, original, sophisticated, impressive, moving. A real poet in her own right.
How did Jane come to write songs for her own album? The singer felt that she had already exhausted everything that others could do for her and now it was her turn to exploit her own world, to draw from it experiences, emotions, shades, subtleties. In 2008, Jane released an album, “Winter Children,” in which all the songs were her own creation. It is a nostalgic album that slightly opens doors to holidays with her parents, her beloved brother and sister on the Isle of Wight, to her blessed childhood, her happiest years, according to her, to other periods that have ended, black, gray, blue, pink.
Jane, who was not at all sure of herself, finally dared to show the fragments of her memoirs to her old friend Alain Souchon, who, to her relief, confirmed her writing talent. Not only that, but he, together with his son Pierre, searched for the melody he had written for her seven years earlier to adapt it to a song called “Blue Period.” A song in which Jane talks to Olivier Roland, a conscripted writer who was her partner from 1995 to 2000, after the end of her affair with the director Jacques Doillon, which lasted from 1980 to 1992. Lou Doillon, the daughter born to her from her relationship with Jacques Doillon, who was twelve years old when her mother met Olivier, did not look favorably on the new infatuation, but Jane stood her ground and was quite right, because thanks to her she was granted another five rich years. With her new partner, whom she met in Sarajevo, she continued her volunteer and humanitarian activities.
And another old friend, Étienne Daho, long in love with her writing, is involved in her second and last intimate album, “Oh! Excuse Me, You Slept,” the name of a play Jane had written twenty years earlier. Étienne admired the bold and authentic way in which Jane portrayed a couple who duel mercilessly all night and part in the morning. The relationship inevitably comes to an end because the woman cannot accept the death of the initial passion and its development into other, more lukewarm feelings (this inability also characterized Serge, as we have seen).
To get a taste of it all, Etienne would often come to see the play (1999) over and over again, which ran for a whole year at the Théâtre de la Gaîté-Montparnasse and then continued throughout France. In the female role – Jane Birkin, in the male role – the late Thierry Fortineau. Etienne knew that this polished performance, which Jane adapted from her previous TV movie with Christine Boisson and Jacques Perrin (1992), would one day become an album. And indeed, in 2020, the project came true.
Between the first album (2008) and the second (2020), Jane was dealt a brutal blow, the tragic news of the death of her eldest daughter Kate (2013). Years of isolation until in 2016 the late Serge felt like rescuing her again. The idea, whispered to Jane by a Canadian journalist to sing his songs accompanied by a symphony orchestra, which was so influenced by classical music, was quickly realized. Jane opened the “Les Francofolies de Montréal” festival that year with two concerts with the city’s symphony orchestra. The album, “Birkin/Gainsbourg: le symphonique,” was recorded in Warsaw with arrangements by Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Yakejima.
The plan to turn the play written by Jean, “Oh! Sorry You Slept,” into an album also came true, as mentioned, although not quickly but twenty years later. If it weren’t for Etienne Daw, this magical and symphonic album would never have seen the light of day. The album, Jane’s fourteenth, is named after the play and is the eponymous song. A woman’s desperate declaration of love for her partner is met with indifference and rage from the latter.
Slowly, the album, intended to express the feelings of a hurt woman, became an album about feelings in general (5). The motif of the death of love and the humiliation that followed appears in many songs, but what is unrequited love compared to the loss of a child, said Jane when talking about the death of her daughter Kate.
First and foremost – Jane’s grief, the agonizing pain of the death of her daughter Kate. The album “Oh! Sorry You Slept” was released in 2020, seven years after Kate’s tragic death, at the age of 46, who fell from the window of her apartment in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, where she had moved shortly before. Suicide? Accident? Unknown. It was the biggest and most difficult drama of Jane’s life.
Jane initially showed Etienne Daou and his partner, musician Jean-Louis Piérot, two poignant songs about the drama, “Cigarettes” and “These Thick Walls.” In “Cigarettes,” Jane expresses the belief that it was an accident. Kate fell out of the window with a lighter in her clenched fist, probably trying to blow out the cigarette smoke. Her body on the cobblestones, her gray-blond hair stuck to her pale face, a cosmic void in the forensic institute—the song that recreates Kate’s last minutes and the shock that followed—is heartbreaking. Etienne Daou’s Kurt Weill-style melody in “The Penny Opera” fits it like a glove.
In the song “These Thick Walls,” Jane places flowers on Kate’s grave, hates the thick walls of the cemetery, and imagines her daughter’s body being entangled in thorns, underground, while she, the mother, is above it, outside. Hurry, hurry, get out of here. How I hate these thick walls. The melody deepens the feeling of the prison and makes the listener understand the desire to escape from it.
Only after the dramatic songs about Kate's death were included on the album, Jane was able to move on to a third song in which Kate appears with her sister Charlotte in a lighter way, during their happy childhood.
This is the album's flagship song, "Forbidden Games," which alludes to René Calment's film (1952) of the same name, in which the girl Paulette buries a puppy killed in an airplane bombing (1940) and asks the farmer's son Michel to bury more dead animals next to him so that he won't be alone.
Kate Berry and Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jane's daughters, imitated the scene from the film as children and, while on vacation in Normandy, collected the corpses of toads, voles, moles, rabbits, chickens, and even Sunday roasts to set up a makeshift cemetery for them.
Amusing and poignant memories of vacations at home in Normandy, in the small village of Cresseveuille, where Jane bought a house as a teacher with the small sum of money she received as a fee for her role in the popular comedy "La moutarde me monte au nez" by Claude Zidi. For fifteen years it served as a vacation home for Jane, Serge and the two daughters, family and friends. It was a happy time, which could not be recreated afterwards, in the old and charming house between the highway and the cemetery. Today, by the way, only one gray gate remains of it.
Kate, who had a developed sense of justice and aesthetics, would transfer dedication plaques (“To my beloved aunt,” “To my dear parents”), crosses adorned with thorns, vases, wreaths, from graves laden with decorations to meager graves, much to the chagrin of the relatives who were being robbed. The village headman demanded that Jane restore order, but Kate no longer remembered where she had gotten what…
Couldn't the happy times in the charming clergy house be recreated? Maybe in songs...
Like the album “Children of Winter,” this album, based on the pure lyrics of Jane Birkin, allowed her to be herself, to share her world with the listeners, to reveal her own feelings. When she sang Serge’s words, she embodied his characters, carried his feelings, felt obliged to be careful to respect his intentions, not to steal them.
On her albums, Alain Souchon and Etienne Daou carried her in their arms, composed the music and slightly edited the lyrics, but she, Jane, remained free in her self-expression and no longer felt like a marionette of Serge or other creators.
Grief and consolation, humiliation and revenge, jealousy of a partner, humiliation, this is an intimate and moving, melancholic and happy album in which opening and scratching wounds leads to a long elevation, to reconciliation, to reconciliation, even to joking and having fun. But there is no denying that in this album, as in the previous one, Jane prominently expresses her gloomy side, a second side, dark and even cruel, especially towards herself but also towards others. This aspect, which exists in her personality, she has not dared to show until now, but here, in her two personal albums, she willingly responded to the need to pull out her nails.
As bleak as death, the end of love
A year or two after her father's death, Jane received a phone call informing her that a house in Brittany, in a place called Lannilis, opposite the beach at Sainte-Marguerite, was for sale. Jane's father had led British, American and Canadian pilots to safety on moonless nights during the war. David risked his life night after night in front of the bunkers of German soldiers whose burning cigarettes could be seen in the darkness. The house in Lannilis overlooked the beach from which the sailor and his charges had sailed, and Jane bought it immediately.
Fate summoned her to the house on the beach, love at first sight, but it later became an egg that sank her inside as her love story with a partner came to an end. The song “Night Ruler” (Il fait nuit) from the album “Children of Winter” speaks of the same defeat described in the song “At High Tide” (À marée haut), from the second album. In the song “Night Ruler” an inner darkness takes over even during the day, wet clothes, bitterness, saltiness, the speaker feels like an abandoned object after her partner no longer desires her. And she longs to push him into the snow pit into which she is swept away in order to make him disappear too. Her rage is expressed in the desire to tear his pictures to shreds, a symbolic murder.
The song “At Tide” talks about the same defeated woman, but this time she turns her anger mainly on herself and sinks into suicidal thoughts. The background, the beach and the water, appears like a scene from a movie of death by drowning or hanging, the fog of Cornouaille nearby, the lighthouse flickers, groans melancholy, the body is swept away by the tides, the wheel breaks. “I stink of defeat” – the declaration appears in the first sentence. The stench of the driftwood, the algae and the dripping rain portend death.
The chorus of this powerful song repeats itself like a lament:
If you don't love me anymore
I don't love myself anymore either.
If you don't love me anymore
I don't love myself anymore either.
A sad hymn of the woman's descent into mental depression following the man's rejection, a eulogy that ironically echoes the happy song of moans, the peak of pleasure for the lovers:
Je t'aime moi non plus
I love you too, I don't anymore.
“I don’t love you anymore either” – a literal translation. This is, in fact, a play on words that has a positive meaning rather than a negative one, namely: “I love you too.”
The ghosts come to heal.
The song “At Tide” is, in my opinion, one of the best on Jane’s two albums. The melody (by Jean-Louis Pierrot) increases its drama as it moves from flutes as an introduction to strings and at its climax to wind instruments. The bass is more present in it than in the other songs and, along with the other instruments, places Jane’s voice in the right place. The song leaves me breathless and awestruck every time, not only the melody but also the wordplay, the imagery, the incessant trickles that whip through the shaky body that has lost control, drowning in the grief of abandonment – the muse has become a poet with her own world and style.
And that is a victory. Brittany and its harsh British weather, the bone-chilling cold, suicidal thoughts but at the same time also the connection to the beginning of life, to the childhood period, the memories of which haunted her all her life. In her home in Brittany, to which she would come whenever she had time off from her many occupations, she could indulge in bittersweet nostalgia for the land of the lost years on long walks on the beach. Like when, running with her brother Andrew and sister Linda on the sands of the Isle of Wight, when she hid with them in its many bunkers, under the protection of her loving parents, David and Judy. Jane could not imagine better parents, a better brother and sister. To come close to restoring happiness.
How much Jane loved her father, who, after his heroic activity in the service of the Resistance during the war, devoted himself to social work, voluntarily, and like him, his daughter also enlisted to help the oppressed and unfortunate. How much she loved her mother, who was a famous actress and singer, a role model, like her father. Brother Andrew and sister Linda were her partners in the experiences of the first years that left their mark on her forever. To get closer to restoring happiness.
From her miraculous childhood, Jane also absorbed the British heritage, folklore, legends and songs, the special humor, a counterbalance to her tendency towards depression and self-destruction, a medicine that infused her with the strength to get back on her feet and return to life after severe beatings.
The eccentric British attitude towards death, which had been ingrained in her since childhood, came to her aid. David and Serge, who died one after the other, first her husband and four days later her father, on whom she could always rely during their lifetimes, were by her side even after their deaths.
In the song “Ghosts,” the dead, grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, daughter, nephew, spouse, cats, dogs, approach Jane’s bed and embrace her tenderly. A return to the English nursery rhymes where the attitude towards death is simple and easy, we will all die, each in turn, we will live with this fact in peace. The belief that the spirits of the dead are present in the lives of loved ones who have lost them helps to overcome grief.
In Jane's film "Boxes," Serge's ghost comes to tell his daughter that he loves her and will always be by her side, even if she can't see him. The sweet song "I'm on Your Window Sill" (Je suis au bord de ta fenêtre) from the previous album parallels this scene from the film.
Jane forever
Comments
Jane Birkin, Monkey Diaries, 1957-1982, Fayard, 2003
Jane Birkin, Post-scriptum, 1982-2013, Fayard, 2019
(2) To deepen the image of Lolita in Gainsbourg's work and to understand his work in general, I recommend this article to French readers.
Alexia Gassin, Lolita, leitmotif de l'oeuvre de Serge Gainsbourg, Presses universitaires de Strasbourg, 2017
(3) An excellent and detailed article about “Melody Nelson”, at this link
Serge Debono, Melody Nelson, le poème symphonique de Serge Gainsbourg, CULTURES CO, 2021
(4) Constance Meyer's book
Constance Meyer, La jeune fille et Gainsbourg, édition de l'Archipel, 2010
(5) Article about “Oh! Sorry, you slept”, In this link
The article is based primarily on the episode, “Jane Birkin”, of the television series “The Secret Life of Songs”, presented by Andrey Manukyan and directed by Chloe Chauvin. The episode was rebroadcast, on the occasion of Jane’s passing, two years after the first broadcast, on July 17, 2023, on the France 3 television channel.
La vie secrète des chansons, Jane Birkin, animé par André Manoukian et réalisé par Chloé Chovin, diffused le lun. 17.7.2023, à 22h35, France 3
Ruth Shimoni's response:
Beloved Ornella,
What an article!!!
This is not an article –
This is a whole doctorate.
Penetrating into the depths of her life and soul
Jane's.
How much knowledge, how much depth,
What a phenomenal combination and analysis
of the songs…
What exposure and explanations about
Pieces of her life,
Combining all the characters
Who turned it around and donated
To create it.
I read a preliminary reading.
You revealed to me a magnetic character.
New.
And in December, may it bring us good things.
I will try to get to the new museum.
On Varney Street –
Perfumed with the scents of your writing.
Well done.
Inspire for real!
I only read the first reading!
I would love to go back and read and enjoy the poems again.
This is a rare article!!!
One reading is not enough.
This is material for review.
What a rich and fascinating canvas you have spread, and what a character I have met thanks to you. A Shabbat delight
Thank you very much, Hava, for the warm response. Very gratifying.
One of your amazing articles:
Fascinating,
Intellectually,
Sensational,
Exciting,
Musically,
Revealing …
Required reading
Another response from Ruth Shimoni.
Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful! I so enjoyed reading this article of yours, Orna. Full disclosure: I love Orna's writing, I've always loved Jane Birkin and I saw her film "Crates" when it was screened at the Jerusalem Film Festival in her presence.
I felt that Orna accompanied Jane Birkin here with infinite tenderness, the caress that befits the very special woman she was. I couldn't stop to listen to the songs, so when I finished reading I went back to the beginning and listened to them in the order they appeared in the text. Thanks to listening in sequence, I realized that you could really see how she developed as a performing singer from the stage where she broke up with Gainsbourg as a partner. I would say it was from the song "Run Away..." (a long name). Her qualities as an actress allow her cabaret style to begin to grow. And indeed, as you wrote, Orna, she only continued to mature and blossom as her work became more her own, and more personal. Over the years, more and more layers were added to the magic powder that fairy Jane Birkin brought with her.
Thank you very much, Orna Lieberman
Thank you very much, Ofra, for your wonderful response!
Rani Rogel
Orna, a wise and moving piece of writing. A love poem to Jane Birkin and the periods of her life and the lives and deaths of those who surround her and are dear to her.
Thank you very much. Yes, that's right Rani, you defined it well. This article is a love song and adoration for Jane Birkin. Unlike many others, I think she has a wonderful, special voice, sometimes high and thin, sometimes strong and dramatic. As she pleases. She is so strong and so human, not afraid to admit weaknesses.
Joel Tamanlis
I read and learned a lot. A quality and interesting article. Best wishes, Orna Lieberman
Alma Kastenberg
It was a great dive. I enjoyed every moment. Thank you very much, Orna.
Ronit Palistrant Shaick
Wow, what an article. I eagerly sipped and an amazing woman was revealed to me. What an angelic voice and a strong woman! A wonderful combination. And your writing is wonderful. Thank you, Orna.
Thank you very much, dear Ronit, for the warm support. Indeed, Jane combines, like most artists, a whole array of contrasts, including what you mentioned, strength-power with folk and humanity-angelic. I wanted to say who she really was and I learned a lot myself and was even surprised.
I would like to thank everyone who has read and will continue to read the relatively long article about Jane Birkin, and especially those who have taken the trouble to write encouraging comments. I owed this article to myself, to Jane Birkin, whom I have followed since I arrived in France many years ago, and to you. And of course to Zvi's website. While writing, I learned a lot about Jane and Serge, and I still have a lot to learn. I only heard about Jane's last two albums when I came across the article, and I'm glad I came across them. Two albums about the purity of her world and her lyrics, worth listening to. Deep, high-quality, and moving. So human. Reflecting her character.
Orit Navot
Dear Orna, I enjoyed reading the fascinating article about Jane Birkin's life. In fact, it's more of an in-depth investigation than an article. I only knew one of her songs before, and following the article, I was exposed to the rich and fascinating life she had, to the glorious period of music and film life in France, and of course to the variety of her songs. Thank you very much!
Orna, reading your article 'threw' me back to the 1970s, an extraordinary period in the 20s – through Jane Birkin's childish-something voice and through her bittersweet life story. Upon reading the article, I realized that I knew almost nothing about her (and Gainsbourg) until now, except for the echo of the song 'I Love You Too, Neither Do I', which became famous all over the world, and a few other songs that were played on the radio. I didn't even know that there was an earlier version of the song with Brigitte Bardot. While reading, I was interested to see how the British Birkin gradually became French, in appearance, accent, and singing style. Something in her naive-sweet style reminds me of Frances Gall, who may have been influenced by Birkin. I have to admit: Birkin had a different kind of "voice," a captivating presence, and a life story that she expressed in her chansons. It's not for nothing that the word "chanson" cannot be translated into any language. It's a style that lifts the spirit, sends us back to the past, nostalgically, makes the listener feel the pulsating pulse of life in its beauty, in its sadness. Birkin expressed it wonderfully.
I didn't know about Gainsbourg's "Lolita" love and his affair with the 16-year-old girl, and by the way, I also didn't know that "the Papuans in New Guinea, who prayed for the fall of the "big birds" in order to enjoy their contents, which they saw as a gift from the gods" - this is an interesting concept... So here I learned a lot. Thank you for a long-awaited article about two important representatives of an era, which I have no doubt required in-depth research, and most importantly, for a wonderful reading experience!
Fascinated by the article/article
I've recently watched (almost) everything that's been broadcast on French television channels.
The various (including ARTE) after the passing of JANE BIRKIN,
I have also seen/heard interviews in recent years
and her new performances.
We've seen movies about SERGE GAINSBOURG before.
Despite prior knowledge, the article added a lot of details, adding to the knowledge of the woman and the artist.
Who was JANE BIRKIN.
It was written with knowledge and love.
Thank you very much, all the best.
Thank you very much for the moving response. You made me very happy. I tried to read as many articles as possible and watch as many interviews and documentaries with/about our Jane as possible and summarize the information and insights in the concise format of the article. I see that I succeeded according to your response. A thousand thanks.
Ronit Huppert:
I read the article and enjoyed every word. Of course, everything was new and fascinating to me.
Brings another series of warm and penetrating comments about the article that were published on Facebook:
An in-depth, fascinating and juicy article!
I read with enthusiasm, listened to the poems, some of which took me back several decades (with chilling nostalgia), and enjoyed every word and every piece of information it contained.
Well done, Orna, wonderful!
A fascinating article, written with a lot of knowledge, sensitivity, understanding, knowledge of the characters involved, the culture, the art, and above all, appreciation for the creators and their works.
Thanks to you, I will hear every song of hers from all eras.
You opened a wonderful door for me to two fascinating artists who represent currents and periods in all fields of art. Thank you for that!
As a huge fan/lover of Serge Gainsbourg, I read every word of your fascinating and thoughtful article, and I will continue to read it. Jane Birkin was talented in her own right, but the connection between them only made them both even better. Thank you very much, Orna Lieberman!
A gripping, fascinating, profound, enriching article! Your writing always enchants me! Thank you, dear Orna!
Sarit Fox:
Thank you, Orna, for a creative and methodological article (footnotes, references, analysis of works, comparison of texts and melodies).
You led Jane from her days as an innocent boy (girl-woman) to her days as a bereaved mother, in her life and work.
Your Jane's entire life moves between eroticism and death (Eros and Thanatos), like a classic tragic heroine.
Including Jane's trait of going beyond the norm towards what is considered forbidden or impure or taboo (as a tragic heroine would do).
You proved that Jane developed alongside Serge Gainsbourg but not thanks to him.
And so, despite the personal and musical symbiosis between them, she found her personal, exclusive, intimate voice for years after his death and expressed it.
Most of us were unaware of the extent of her career.
Orna Lieberman:
And wow, thank you, Sarit, for the sharp response. Instinct moderated by methodology – a characterization that I really like for the article. The work is a mixture of instinct and hardship, the hardship of the instinct. Instinct: Y + hardship.
Sarit Fox sent me a link to a very accurate article about Jane as a fashion icon. Here is a link
Sophie Rakhlenko
This is a beautiful homage to Jane Barkin, the singer and actress, wife of Serge Gainsbourg, and also an independent woman and artist in her own right.
This is a homage that is a comprehensive and in-depth study, filled with moving and instructive video clips. It is invested with a great deal of knowledge that also includes the field of music, characterized by a talent for literary analysis and flowing and captivating writing. And above all, throughout this touching homage, Orna Lieberman's great love for Jane Barkin, the one and only, permeates.