Nobody Feels Any Pain
Everybody knows...
That Baby's got new clothes
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have fallen from her curls
Just Like a Woman - Bob Dylan - November 1965
Mary Woronov, Gerard Malanga, John Cale, Sterling Morrison,
Mo Tucker, Lou Reed, Nico and Andy Warhol.
Life and death are just things you do when you're bored
Say fear's a man's best friend
Say fear's a man's best friend
John Cale
Ambrosia Parsley - Shivaree (Photo by Melanie Nissen)
I wore the dress that you liked almost everyday
Boxed up all my baby dolls and gave them away
I wrote your name on the wall next to my bed
Any day that I saw you at all was circled in red
I wore the dress that you liked almost everyday
Boxed up all my baby dolls and gave them away
I wrote your name on the wall next to my bed
Any day that I saw you at all was circled in red
Slideshow courtesy of G Miraba
Ambrosia Parsley - (Photo by Melanie Nissen)
Shivaree adopted their name from a French term Charivari, a noisy, boisterous, mock serenade using makeshift instruments and the banging of pots, cleavers, bones and pans to make a cacophony outside the matrimonial home of newlyweds.
The custom evolved into a form of social coercion in France (In England it was known as Rough Music or Ran-Tanning) whereby the community enforced it's own social standards by loudly and visibly showing it's disapproval of the actions/lifestyles of any individuals thought to be socially unacceptable.
Burning and hanging effigies of the 'victim' was not uncommon
From the Chicago Tribune (above), January 2, 1881. In this incident a rough music looks like it got out of hand: had the mob intended to kill Dove, the masks wouldn’t have been necessary. Wife beaters and men who abused their children and horses were routinely targeted for this kind of correction back to colonial times, as was just about anyone widely regarded as an irritant in the community.
Cause everybody's tryin' to get into heaven
When they buried Serge Gainsbourg in Montparnasse Cemetary, his funeral brought Paris to a standstill. French President François Mitterrand said of him, "He was our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire... He elevated the song to the level of art.
Brigit Bardot - Serge Gainsbourg
In 1967 Gainsbourg had a brief but passionate affair with Brigit Bardot. When she asked him to write her a beautiful love song, he wrote her two in the same evening; the first, 'Bonnie and Clyde' was inspired by a Bonnie Parker poem called 'The Trail's End' written only a matter of weeks before she and Clyde Barrow drove a stolen Ford V8 into a hail of Texas Ranger's bullets on a country road, deep in the Louisianna woods on 23 May 1934.
Bonnie Parker - Clyde Barrow
The Ford Sieve - The model Henry never envisaged
The second song Gainsbourg wrote that night was Je t'aime... moi non plus (I love you... me neither). It was recorded in the winter of 1967 in a small Paris studio, the two of them, according to the engineer, heavy petting in the glass booth throughout the two hour session.
Bardot would eventually beg Gainsbourg not to release the track after reports of their studio shenanigans appeared in the press, Bardot's German husband Gunter Sachs apparently making bold his disapproval of the sexual content and his wife's hi jinks.
The title was inspired by a Salvador Dali comment: "Picasso is Spanish, me too. Picasso is a genius, me too. Picasso is a communist, me neither."
Dali taking his anteater for a stroll...
When in 1968 Serge Gainsbourg met and fell in love with Jane Birkin he asked her to re record 'Je t'aime...' with him. Probably one of the most controversial records of it's time, that version would go on to be hit throughout Europe despite blanket radio bans and a denouncement from the Vatican (they actually excommunicated the record executive who released it in Italy).
Birkin: Gainsbourg called the Pope "our greatest PR man."
Undressing for dinner... Gainsbourg and Birkin
Remembering their first date, Birkin recalls: "The night began with a trip to a nightclub, then a transvestite bar and then on to the Hilton hotel, where he passed out in a drunken stupor."
Of the simulated orgasm on the recording, Birkin said "I got a bit carried away with the heavy breathing – so much so, in fact, that I was told to calm down..."
Bardot and Birkin
"The whole of France lived vicariously through Serge," Causican singer-songwriter Bertrand Burgalat told the Guardian, "People who had stopped smoking and drinking cheered when they saw Serge on TV, drunk, setting light to 500F bills and telling Whitney Houston he wanted to 'fuck her'. And not many of us got to have it off with Bardot or Birkin. But we loved the fact that an ugly guy like him did. He was our representative in showbiz, and we loved him for it!"
Gainsbourg and Birkin went on to record the fabulous and influential Histoire de Melody Nelson, a Lolita-esque concept album with Gainsbourg acting as narrator.
En Melody
A tenuous link here but this Timmy Thomas film from 1973 for 'Why Can't We Live Together' (below) is so much a favourite of mine, I've been trying to jemmy it into the blog since Day One. The go-go dancing and overlapping imagery owe a huge debt to the En Melody footage above
Ugliness is in a way superior to beauty because it lasts.
Serge Gainsbourg (The alcohol talking)
Serge Gainsbourg (The alcohol talking)
And as if by magic...
We end up back in New York...
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel, you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
You fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind, we are ugly but we have the music."
You told me again you preferred handsome men but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
You fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind, we are ugly but we have the music."
Chelsea Hotel - Leonard Cohen on his affair with Janis Joplin
Wake up in New York
Put a comb through your hair
Don't you ever want to lie down
When there's no-one else around
Put a comb through your hair
Don't you ever want to lie down
When there's no-one else around
Wake Up In New York
Craig Armstrong featuring the Lemonhead´s Evan Dando.
Unable at this moment in time to credit the creator of this excellent film
Closing the Glasgow - New York - Paris connection, Angela McCluskey's version of 'Here Come's the Sun' arranged by Paul Cantelon in this stunning film by Jason Armstrong Beck starring Sharon Angela.
Sharon Angela
The song and film were created to raise awareness and much needed funds, for the SWEET RELIEF MUSICIANS FUND: an organization dedicated to helping musicians who are battling debilitating illnesses.sweetrelief.org
DUMB BABY SOUNDS OFFICIAL SITE AT
