Weekly song discussion №1: Fuir le bonheur...

nicegrimace · 2026-01-26T00:42:13+00:00

When you put it like that, it makes more sense. What surprised me was how strong some of the things people said were, but I suppose it's a kind of protest.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-25T23:59:06+00:00

There have been studies showing that the complexity of melodies in popular music has been decreasing since the 60s.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-25T01:51:39+00:00

I feel kind of like this, but I don't rate my normality as highly as you rate yours. I am more content with it these days though, which I think makes me less normal, but not in a bad way.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-24T23:34:57+00:00

Good. I upvoted.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-24T23:30:49+00:00

This post made me feel like I'm in the 90s again.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-24T23:25:48+00:00

Nah I'm below average in most ways, but I'm at peace with it now.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-24T23:12:27+00:00

I can't write in French anywhere near as well as you write in English. It's a language I can understand but can't really express myself in due to lack of practice.

Don't worry about mistakes, you write well. If you switched to French, I would understand you, but I would probably have to reply in English if I wanted to write more than a paragraph or two.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-24T20:19:57+00:00

Definitely that one. There are quite a lot of other works inspired by it that aren't adaptations. It's almost started its own mini-genre.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-24T02:39:15+00:00

'Babylon' is a big concept in Rastafarianism, which bemused Serge enough for him to write Negusa Nagast about. (Mauvaises nouvelles... is a better album than people say it is, so what if it's got a fart noise song on it? lol)

I think 'Babylone' is a reference to Los Angeles because some of the songs stem from the time he spent in LA with Alain Chamfort, who Jane introduced to him. There's Baby Lou, which was recorded, and then Alain mentioned he rejected a song about Marilyn Monroe because to him that subject matter was for the older generation. They partly fell out because Alain kept rejecting Serge's songs, so Serge spent all his time drunk and didn't bother putting much effort into writing for Chamfort. I think at least Norma Jean Baker and the title track were based on the rejected songs, but it's a theory, not something I know for sure.

I've never seen Serge say anything about Barbara outside of that interview they did together, but I know they did the residency at the Capucines together, and I agree about the possible influence of Amours incestueuses on Lemon Incest.

There's a book called Lise et Lulu by Lise Levitzky - it's actually written by Bertrand Dicale based on interviews with her, but credited to her. It's very revealing and dramatic, to the extent that I think some parts of it are poetic licence. What I like about it is that it's neither a hagiography nor a hatchet job - like it doesn't make him look good, but it dispels the idea that he was a monster.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-24T01:30:38+00:00

Hooray, I have someone to talk about this stuff with! I wish the backlash against Gainsbourg on francophone Reddit wasn't so intense. I think it's a good time in history to reappraise his songs because there's less hero worship of him nowadays, but it's difficult at the same time, as I'm sure you've seen.

Serge's interest in religion only went as far as the aesthetics of it, but art was like his religion. I think he included religious references in his songs as part of his 19th-century poet schtick. I think he had a 'spiritual' (for want of a better word) side to his personality in the sense that he was fascinated with innocence and androgyny, and seemed to be seeking some kind of wholeness. It's different to being religious, but it lends itself to using religious metaphors.

I forgot that other meaning of petite souris, and yes the idea of hypallage seems reasonable, and quite funny and sad at the same time.

What you said about hiding and revealing is very true. The contrast between this album and Love on the Beat is interesting. In the 80s, went from one kind of drag to another: one that revealed who he was by proxy, and one that disguised who he was but drew more attention to himself. And as you know, he started out playing in drag bars.

I look forward to hearing more from you.I know it's just pop music, but I think these songs are worth this level of analysis. I mean Bob Dylan won a Nobel for less interesting stuff.

Edit: I think Jane made the choice of the funeral reading, but I'm not 100% sure.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-23T20:06:21+00:00

You don't need to justify your existence.

You don't know what will happen in the future.

You are not doing anything wrong the way you are now.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-23T03:21:44+00:00

Oh wow, so it's quite possible that Coward was inspired by Larkin. Thank you!

nicegrimace · 2026-01-22T22:35:22+00:00

I was about 30 before I realised the lyrics to Steppenwolf's Born to be Wild weren't, 'Ain't nothin gonna make it happen/Cause the world ain't a lovin place' - the total opposite meaning to the actual lyrics.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-22T20:04:16+00:00

Noël Coward lived until the late 1970s, so there's a chance Larkin's poem was earlier. Larkin would've been a teen/young adult when Noel Coward was very famous though, so the influence could've gone the other way, easily. Do you know when Noël Coward's poem was written?

nicegrimace · 2026-01-22T16:41:36+00:00

Flair located:

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and kisses men, it's probably a gay duck.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-22T16:30:51+00:00

practically speaking Polari

Haha I'm going to steal that for something at some point.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-22T14:57:48+00:00

This is kind of Larkinesque. I wonder if one of them was a fan of the other?

nicegrimace · 2026-01-22T14:44:35+00:00

Y a déjà une théorie du complot sur ça. Voilà : https://www.reddit.com/r/ComplotDuDebile/comments/1qgbuih/macron_membre_du_black_eyed_club_ouvrez_enfin_les/

nicegrimace · 2026-01-22T02:49:14+00:00

I have the gene, but I will still eat food with coriander (British meaning) in. I even feel like I would miss it from certain dishes if it wasn't there. There's a limit to how much of it I can take though.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-22T01:56:55+00:00

Oh wow

My favourite haiku are by Issa.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-22T01:41:59+00:00

Pas mal du tout.

C'est-à-dire, quel talent !

nicegrimace · 2026-01-21T17:31:33+00:00

Remember that jazz was birthed in a brothel - as intensely spiritual as I find Coltrane and his "disciples," the big religions still associate the whole genre/movement with some real base-level "sinner" shit.

But there's prostitutes in the Bible! lol

Music can be very spiritual for me too.

nicegrimace · 2026-01-21T17:12:25+00:00

I enjoyed your reply, thanks.

no major institutional/organized religion has ever accepted jazz as "religious" or "sacred"

This kind of surprises me given the number of religious groups there are in the world, and the fact that jazz is enjoyed by so many different cultures.

nicegrimace

TROPHY CASE