Gainsbourg Serge: Le siecle d"'or 1958-63

Gainsbourg charmed us and repelled us, sometimes even charmed us and repelled us, which made him a familiar enigma, a dazzling mystery. Simultaneously both Jekyll and Hyde, shy and provocative, modest yet exhibitionist, Gainsbourg and Gainsbarre, Yin and Yang, masculine and feminine, God and the devil, he undoubtedly represents the two extremes of desire and natural urges. Gainsbourg is almost unique in French music. Only he and Léo Ferré developed their own texts and their arrangements to such an extent. Serge Gainsbourg wrote and composed not as an author or a musician would, but like a painter. He used words, notes and instruments as he would have done colours and paintbrushes. Light or dark, gentle, cynical, wild with excitement, pastel, bright, warm or cold, peaceful or violent, his poetic images are impressed upon us as if he had painted them.