The Prague Post
December 5th, 2008
Endowment Fund     Business Listings ONLINE      Reservations      Classifieds    star Gift Subscriptions
Hotel Prague Centre

Home » Archives » Night & Day

The wild child grows up

Still searching, Jane Birkin strikes out in new directions
Stage Review | Search restaurants | Archives

By James Scanlon
For The Prague Post
February 13th, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Haunted by the spirit of Serge Gainsbourg, Birkin keeps his memory alive while adding new sounds of her own.
enlarge
Jane Birkin

When: Saturday, Feb. 16, at 8
Where: Divadlo Archa
Tickets: 500–700 Kč, available through Ticketpro and at the venue

Life must be tough, if not bemusing sometimes, when you’re considered to be the world’s first notorious heavy breather. But then, ’60s wild child Jane Birkin probably wouldn’t have it any other way.
Following her raunchy duet Je t’aime … moi non plus with former lover Serge Gainsbourg, in which she simulated an orgasm that shocked everybody from her parents to the Vatican, it seemed her career would forever be cemented as a social pariah.
These days, Birkin, 61, insists that the 1969 hit was never intended to shock. “I just wanted people to know that it was about sex,” she says with an air of innocence that fools nobody, not even herself.
As an omnipresent darling of the Left Bank of Paris, Gainsbourg made dark, brooding music that had a big influence on people like Juliette Greco, Yves Montaud and Alain Chamfort. But he was also seen as an arrogant, self-obsessed misogynist who took endless delight in exploiting his women as mere media fodder. Birkin had already been married to John Barry, the man responsible for the James Bond theme, but it didn’t last very long. She fell for the feral charms of Gainsbourg on the set of Pierre Grimblat’s film Slogan in 1968, and decided to leave Blighty behind forever.
Like glam to the slaughter, she was soon posing nude for men’s pleasure mags; in one famous shoot, she was chained naked to a radiator wearing nothing but suspenders. At odds with all conventional feminist theory, she says she would have done “absolutely anything” to keep her man. On one occasion she even threw herself into the River Seine, begging Gainsbourg to forgive her for throwing a custard pie in his face. But when asked if she has any regrets, she responds, “It was all great fun.”
After eventually leaving Gainsbourg, Birkin found a third husband in film director Jacques Doillon. But again it was a doomed relationship, and the couple ended up splitting, with Doillon claiming he wasn’t able to exist in Gainsbourg’s shadow.
Too many cigarettes and booze finally did in Gainsbourg in 1991, but Birkin feels happily haunted by his presence. She even believes Paris still carries the burden of not wanting to forget the Birkin-Gainsbourg partnership. “There’s never a day that goes past when you don’t hear the immortal intimacies of Je t’aime … moi non plus,” she says.
Birkin lives alone these days with her canine friend Dora, a dog of reputedly huge proportions. But, to her enormous credit, in recent years she’s taken to exploring new avenues in her music, as well as supporting worthwhile causes such as Amnesty International.
In March 2002 she recorded Arabesque, a live album in honor of her late husband at the Olympia Theater in Paris. Birkin added an exotic new twist to various Gainsbourg gems by using a quintet of Arabic musicians. It generated such positive response that she followed it up with an album of duets entitled Rendez-vous in 2004. Rock luminaries like Bryan Ferry, Etienne Daho, Feist, Brian Molko and Francoise Hardy were all more than keen to offer their services — after all, it was hip to be into Gainsbourg.
Topping all that is her latest disc, Fictions, her first-ever album sung entirely in English. Like Rendez-vous, it was produced by Renaud Letang and Gonzales, with some splendid guitar work by Johnny Marr (ex-Smiths). Artists as varied as Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy), Beth Gibbons (Portishead), Rufus Wainwright and Kate Bush contributed the sort of songs that Birkin has been itching to sing for years.
“The original idea behind doing the record was the idea of coming home,” she says. “I’ve been a displaced person for most of my life, and it’s a bit impertinent to try to find out if I’ll be received as just another singer. I needed to go and see.
“It’s strange being part of other people’s lives. Sometimes you feel like you’re sailing without a compass. This record started out with a destination, but in the end it changed into an adventure that brought me back to where I am.”
The adventure continues this weekend with her first-ever Prague concert. In the intimate surroundings of Archa, she’ll be accompanied by Christophe Cravero (piano/violin), Frederick Jacquemin (percussion) and Thomas Coeuriot (guitar). Gainsbourg is also likely to be there in spirit.

James Scanlon can be reached at features@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (13/02/2008):

Browse the Current Issue

If you enjoyed this article, why don't you subscribe to the print version!
We accept secure online transactions provided by PayPal and Moneybookers

Be the first to add a comment!


Full Name: *
City: *
E-mail: **
This comment can be published in the print version of The Prague Post
Enter the text on the right:
 visual captcha
Comment: *
* Required field. In order to be approved for display, comments must have a first and last name and a city.
** E-mails are required and will only be used for internal purposes.

Most visited in Business Listings

Provokator
Hotel booking
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.