Precious handwritten document by Serge GAINSBOURG on Milord l'Arsouille.

Serge Gainsbourg (1928.1991)

Autograph card signed to his pianist friend Lucien Merer.

An oblong octavo page on the back of a view of Zagreb.

Zagreb. October 27, 1961.

“My lord, they will have to lengthen the sauce. »

Precious and rare document dating from the first years of Gainsbourg's musical and cinematographic career, then in Yugoslavia for the filming of a peplum.

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cordially to you Lucien

Serge Gainsbourg

my lord they will have to lengthen the sauce

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Serge Gainsbourg was staying in Zagreb for the filming of the epic La Furia di Ercole (under the direction of Giafranco Parolini), a film in which he played the role of the tyrant Menistus, chased by Hercules after the assassination of young Daria.

It was during this Yugoslav stay that Gainsbourg carried out his first exploits as a pyromaniac. In fact, he decided to light a cigarette with a burning 100 dinar bill. Arrested by the constabulary, he had to undergo questioning in police custody for “provocation to the regime”. Back in France, he explained to Jacques Chancel: “they don’t have a sense of humor there”

From the Croatian capital, he sends his regards to Merer, evoking the famous Parisian cabaret in the 1st ^{arrondissement} , the Milord l'Arsouille , where he made his debut in 1957, accompanied by his pianist friend.

Lucien Merer (1927-2019), pianist, composer and arranger, accompanied Gainsbourg from his first steps. Merer collaborated with several other big names on the musical scene: Boby Lapointe, Jean Ferrat, Cora Vaucaire, Édith Piaf, Léo Ferré and Charles Aznavour, sometimes assisting them during their debuts or their singing tours in cabarets and concert halls. Parisians (Jacob's Ladder, Milord l'Arsouille, Bobino, etc.).

Note a pale discharge of writing (inverted) on the back of the card: the "ghost" of an autograph note from Merer, difficult to read, in which the arranger remembers, ten years after Gainsbourg's death, the circumstances of this shipment from Zagreb.