Jane Birkin on Love, Life and Serge Gainsbourg’s Classical Roots

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/arts/music/jane-birkin-serge-gainsbourg-carnegie-hall.html

Version 0 of 1.

Jane Birkin was the longtime muse and partner of the classic French songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. And from the moment they recorded “Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus,” a cheerfully (and explicitly) erotic duet that became a major succès de scandale, she became one of his greatest interpreters. Even after their breakup, she continued to sing the songs he wrote for her in her delicate, vulnerable voice.

Ms. Birkin enjoyed an acting career that took her from a bit part in Antonioni’s “Blow-Up” to film and stage work with Agnès Varda and Patrice Chéreau. And, of course, her beauty and style transfixed generations of fashionistas, and inspired the pricey Birkin bag from Hermès.

Now, at 71, Ms. Birkin is taking on a new challenge. She recently recorded a set of Gainsbourg songs, accompanied by a full orchestra, for the album “Birkin/Gainsbourg: Le Symphonique,” and is now on a world tour with them that will bring her to Carnegie Hall on Thursday.

In a telephone interview, she suggested that the idea was not as odd as it sounds — noting that Gainsbourg was known to incorporate melodies by Chopin, Brahms and Grieg — and spoke candidly about love, art and loss. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

You’re really the keeper of the Gainsbourg flame. What is it about his songs that continues to fascinate?

I would have thought that he was probably France’s most modern writer: He invented a new language, he cut words in two like Cole Porter. He didn’t just have one phase, like other great French writers, who stayed in the same sort of mode. He never stopped running ahead. It was amazing that he was popular at all, given that he was so far ahead of his time.

He wrote for me from 1968 until the day he died [in 1991]. They’re not always the most well known, the songs that I sang, but they’re among the most beautiful. And the most tear-jerky, in a way, was when I left him. Why he went on asking me to interpret the songs that I had inspired I don’t know — but perhaps he knew that I’d be faithful at least to that.

The idea of taking the songs — which are so rooted in different styles, from pop to chanson to yé-yé to reggae — and making them orchestral sounds counterintuitive. But I understand classical music was important to him. How so?

A lot of the songs he wrote, not only for me but for others, were from classical music. So “Jane B.” was Chopin.

Whenever he wanted to give us something really beautiful, he sometimes wrote it on classical music — perhaps out of a sort of modesty, of always being so admiring of classical work that somehow he wanted to give us the best. From his pianist days — he was a pianist at a bar in Le Touquet [a seaside town in northern France], and his father was a classical musician — it was from his upbringing that he knew so much about classical music. Brahms was “Baby Alone in Babylone.”

Did he listen to much classical music?

He did when his mother died. He had bouts of wanting to be sad, and then he would put on classical music. Glenn Gould he always had under his elbow. And he had, on his little table, a picture of Chopin, and Chopin’s hand.

Is it harder or simpler to sing songs that were written for you, that must bring up so many memories?

When he first gave them to me, they were personal — and then I was not necessarily the best receiver. I sometimes thought that he had a hidden message. And, actually, when I listen to the words now, they’re even more beautiful than I understood then. Many sad things have happened now, like Kate [one of her daughters, who died in 2013]. So if I think of anything, I sometimes think of her.

It sounds as if this project had its roots in that tragedy.

I wasn’t very good on my own. I didn’t know what to do. I realized the importance of going into other people’s lives, of going to the cinema — I’d sometimes see three, four films a day, sometimes see two, three plays a week. To understand other people’s stories, not to think about yourself so much. It helps, other people’s stories. Somehow singing Serge’s songs, and knowing that people would have memories, probably about when I sang them first, that’s rather nice.

What was it like recording a sexually charged song like “Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus,” knowing it was written for Gainsbourg’s ex, Brigitte Bardot, who did not want their recording of it released because she was married to someone else? Was that strange?

No, no — I didn’t want anybody else to sing it! Serge rang me up years after that and he said, “I’ve got some bad news for you.” And I said: “What? Say it quickly, then.” And he said, “Brigitte’s been on the phone and she wants to bring out ‘Je T’Aime’ — her version.” I remember thinking that that was quite just and proper, because it was her song. I still find her version very troubling — it’s a lovely and gorgeous version — so, if anything, I have to thank her for not wanting it to come out.

I understand you plan to publish your diaries?

Yes, I’m trying to translate them into French, even now. There are funny things, charming things with Serge — but pretty depressing personal stuff. It was much more about how disheartened I was, of not being pretty.

From the outside looking in, that’s hard to believe. Few people have been more glamorous, or more universally considered beautiful.

I know it must be annoying when people say that — I’ve read about really beautiful people saying, “Well, I didn’t think I was much,” and I think, “Oh God, with looks like that, I could have sunk a ship.” It’s true that if you’re not with the person you love, and they’re not looking at you, then it doesn’t matter what you look like.