Melody - Serge Gainsbourg

"Histoire de Melody Nelson is a 1971 concept album by controversial French songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. The Lolita-esque pseudo-autobiographical plot involves the middle-aged Gainsbourg unintentionally colliding his 26-horsepower 1910 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost into teenage nymphet Melody Nelson's bicycle, and the subsequent seduction and romance that ensues."

- From Wikipedia


I first heard this album at Alison Boland's pre-screening barbeque on a warm sunny day back in May. It was on a seduction mix made by one of Alison's friends from Arkansas, and what first caught me was its likeness to some Beck songs (specifically Paper Tiger and Dark Star). I then learned that Beck is a big fan of Serge Gainsbourg, and since I'm a Beck fan that means I've been a 2nd degree Serge Gainsbourg fan since around 7th grade and have only now made that fated connection.

Anyway, after it's release a series of music videos was made for each song and released as a short film-ish thing called "Melody." Below are links to all 7 parts*.

Part 1 - Melody
Part 2 - Ballade de Melody Nelson
Part 3 - Valse de Melody
Part 4 - Ah! Melody
Part 5 - L'Hôtel Particulier
Part 6 - En Melody
Part 7 - Cargo Culte

*Best if viewed with a glass of wine between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.

A few things of interest

Youle Blog and S.W.A.K. are two blogs I just started reading, and I'm jealous of how good they are.

Library Thing is a website where you can electronically catalog your library, find new books and authors based on what you've read, and add a little feature to your blog (I put one in the column on the right).

VIRB° is something I'm still investigating, but it seems like a MySpace (here's an example profile page) without any advertising that’s based around music and video. It's also a hosting service similar to YouTube that I'm gonna test out. Here's a side-by-side comparison.





Let me know what yall think.

Videotape

No Country For Old Men

Moss set the case in the booth and eased himself in after it. He lifted the menu from the wire rack where it stood along with the mustard and ketchup. She scooted into the booth oposite. He didn't look up. What are you havin, he said.

I don't know. I aint looked at the menu.

He spun the menu around and slid it in front of her and turned and looked for the waitress.

What are you? the girl said.

What am I havin?

No. What are you. Are you a character?

He studied her. The only people I know that know what a character is, he said, is other characters.

I might be a fellow traveler.

Fellow traveler.

Yeah.

Well, you are now.


by Cormac McCarthy
photo by William Eggleston