L'Histoire de Melody Nelson

Product Information

On the suggestion of her brother Andrew, she is now contemplating approaching a British university to do dual translations: “One with the rhyme and one with the meaning.” The cover photograph was shot by Tony Frank. In it, Melody is portrayed by Gainsbourg's partner, Jane Birkin, wearing a red wig, and with her jeans rolled down slightly to accommodate her early stage of pregnancy. [5] Plot [ edit ] Serge Gainsbourg was nothing if not prolific, penning well over 550 songs in his 62 years of life. With that said, Histoire de Melody Nelson is unlike anything else in his extensive catalog, standing alone as his dark, salacious magnum opus.

Through her interactions with Bilel, Erelle started grasping how young girls were being radicalized. In an interview with the Guardian, Erelle said, “Multiple reasons. First, these are girls who are maybe too naive. They really think they will help the population, so they go for that. But now, for one year or so, we have seen a lot of girls going to Syria or Iraq because they think they will make a good marriage and become somebody very important when they are married to a powerful man. The scary stuff is that the girls are now as drunk on power as the men.” She also mentioned fame as one of the aspects that attracted these young girls.Histoire de Melody Nelson exudes a sense of unbridled lust from the very moment the record begins with Herbie Flowers’ seedy, rambling and entrancing bass line on “Melody.” Flowers notably played bass on Lou Reed’s Transformer (remember “Walk On The Wild Side”), as well as on David Bowie’s self-titled debut (“Space Oddity”) and Diamond Dogs. A genius in his own right, Flowers perfectly enhances the sleazy-but-suave sounds of Gainsbourg’s introspective growl. The session players were usually paid a decent one-off fee, with cash handed straight over in a money bag: “You declared it, but it came in little envelopes,” says Dave. “They just dished out the cash. Martin Kershaw is reputed to have never opened one of those cash bags – he just used to throw them into a wardrobe. And after a few years he bought himself a flat in Marble Arch with twenty grand. A lot of money in those days.” Histoire de Melody Nelson ( [is.twaʁ də me.lɔ.di nɛl.sɔn] "Story of Melody Nelson") is a 1971 concept album by French songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. Produced by Jean-Claude Desmarty, the album was released on March 24, 1971 through Philips Records. Its narrative follows an illicit romance which develops between the middle-aged narrator and 15-year-old girl Melody Nelson. After the release of the album, a music video was made for each song and released all together as Melody, a short musical.

On 22 and 23 October 2008, Jean-Claude Vannier performed the album live at the Cité de la Musique with guest vocalists Mathieu Amalric, Brigitte Fontaine, Brian Molko, Martina Topley-Bird, Daniel Darc, Clotilde Hesme, and Seaming To. Also performing were Herbie Flowers (bass), Claude Engel (guitar) and Pierre-Alain Dahan (drums). [19] Vannier also performed his album L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches. The Lamoureux Orchestra, the Yound Choir of Paris and a children's string quintet were also part of the show. Outside his native France, the view of Serge Gainsbourg was once of a one-hit wonder lothario. This has been slowly replaced by an awareness of how talented and innovative a songwriter he was. Gainsbourg was an eclectic, protean figure; a Dadaist, poète maudit, Pop-Artist, libertine and anti-hero. An icon and iconoclast. a b Simmons, Sylvie (2009). Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes. Da Capo Press. pp.63–67. ISBN 978-0786747146. Dave, who also plays that divine, chunky bass hook on ‘69 année érotique’, remembers being given total freedom to experiment by Gainsbourg and Vannier: “Very often, we were given these very rigid bass parts where the composer wants you to play it note for note. But I very rarely played anything exactly as it was written, and none of us did. You’d get a feel going and then you’d hear something in the drums or the guitar and you’d echo it or compliment it. It was just a thing that you did and you didn’t even think about it.” Alan Parker on the other hand suggests that Vannier could be “a little bit fragile and a little bit grumpy if we changed any of his arrangements”.

Barcode and Other Identifiers

According to Erelle, the girls idolized the jihadists. They knew almost nothing about religion and were only aware of the propaganda spread by radical organizations. Erelle wished to take a further look into the situation and came across a Belgian woman whose daughter had disappeared. While searching for the young girl, Erelle learned that ISIS recruited young girls, mostly converts, through social media. The girl had apparently run away to Syria to marry her radical Muslim boyfriend she met online. But any pleasure in its seductive texture must be tempered as soon as its disquieting subject matter unfolds. Birkin’s voice wafts in like a refrain, whispering “Melody Nelson” as intensely as though she’s trying to pull Gainsbourg out of a coma. Which she may well have been, as he vocalises throughout in a subdued, vaguely menacing ‘speech-song’ that sounds emptied-out by experience. But like Lolita, Histoire de Melody Nelson is an artistic triumph about the power of human obsession. It’s an important, enjoyable work and one that rightfully demands to be heard 45 years later. Conceptually speaking, Histoire de Melody Nelson is perhaps the closest thing to a musical imagining of Vladimir Nabokov’s seminal and controversial 1955 novel Lolita. This is not to say that the two masterworks are directly linked, but that they present licentiously similar scenarios. Put simply, both concern a sexual relationship between a middle-aged man and an underage girl. Thus, for obvious reasons, were either effort executed with anything short of nuanced perfection, the dubious subject matter alone would render both works downright perverted, inaccessible and wholly inexcusable.

Histoire de Melody Nelson is considered by many critics and fans to be Gainsbourg's most influential and accomplished work, as well as one of the greatest French-language albums in popular music. [3] Concept [ edit ]Anyway, long story short - greatness is greatness, no matter the language, or the politics, or the overall jive - it is what it is is and it can't be denied. And I listen to Melody Nelson, and for all of its artiness, there is still a core to the music that is experimental and timeless. Jean Claude Vanier outdid himself on the dissonant arrangements. All of the choirs sings sounds of disgusting lust, strings swell and reveal nothing but animal urges... the whole record presents everything that is dirty and forbidden, but draws you in as if Christ was offering the apple himself. It is certainly a compelling listen, and as sure as I've been listening to great music all my life (that I am sure of), Gainsbourg fits in with your BEatles, Stones, everthing. The ending is spectacular and not a wasted note. p.s. it is short, but it never feels like it a b c d Ewing, Tom (29 March 2009). "Serge Gainsbourg - Histoire de Melody Nelson". Pitchfork . Retrieved 6 May 2014. A significant portion of ‘Profile’ is based on the true story of Anna Erelle. Most of these elements of Erelle’s story are preserved in the film’s narrative, with some cosmetic changes to details such as names and locations. Certain key elements have been changed to make the story more dramatized. Events depicting how Bilel learns that he is being catfished have been altered. Most of the events from this point onwards are works of fiction to create a taut, high-stakes thriller. He also thinks playing up the Gallic nature of the music would be a huge mistake. “If someone took the Frenchness out of a cover that could make it work. Melody Nelson was from Sunderland after all.” He sat on the edge of it, let his hand subtly land on her shoulder and inquired on which were her views regarding Flaubert's depiction of women and sexuality, from the famous Bovary to that older femme in L'Éducation Sentimentale. She spoke, he stroked his beard. The telephone rings, after a couple of seconds his piercing eyes move from hers onto Bell's invention in the kitchenette. He takes the call and after about a minute into the conversation tempers fire up, excited words are exchanged, in various languages, a few insults in the mix. He hangs up violently, spitefully. Looks at her and says "I'll be with you in a minute" before going into the room adjacent.