Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes

Requiem For A Twister

by Sylvie Simmons

Helter Skelter Publishing, 2002, ISBN 1900924404, black and white photographic plates and  photographs, paperback

Near Fine Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, minor rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, no inscriptions, uncreased spine (See photographs)

“When Serge Gainsbourg was found dead in his bed in March 1991, France went into mourning.  Brigitte Bardot, who’d slept with him, gave a eulogy; President Mitterrand, who hadn’t, gave one too.  He was “Our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire” said the French head of state.  “He elevated the song to the level of ‘art’”.  Flags were flown at half-mast – a less fitting tribute for the priapic pop genius than the bottles of Pastis and packs of Gitanes left by the crowds who descended on his house.
“Ask anyone in Paris”, said Nicolas Godin of French group Air, “and they can remember what they were doing when they heard Gainsbourg had died.  It was such a shock.  Because he was always ‘there’, always doing something crazy.  He was a poet.  He was a punk.  And he wanted to fuck Whitney Houston.”  He was also a singer, songwriter, actor, soundtrack composer, Eurovision Song Contest winner, novelist, photographer, artist, film director, screenwriter, intellectual and seducer of some of the most beautiful women in the world.”