Serge Gainsbourg – His song for Petula Clark. “Flashback”.

Serge Gainsbourg (1928.1991)

Typed, annotated and signed manuscript – Flashback.

One page in quarto with corrections and deletions. No place or date [Paris. 1972]

"And you, my love, my tenderness – What good are all the riches – Of a man one does not love?"

Full lyrics of the song Flash-Back written for Petula Clark.

Magnificent document – ​​with nostalgic overtones of Melody Nelson – corrected in the text by Gainsbourg.

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Flashback

I returned to my street / Under the grey sky of my youth / Where brick walls stand / In dead-end passages.

With a heavy heart I climbed / Slowly from my Mercedes / The children wondered, "Who is it?" / Opening their wide, innocent eyes

They stop their hoop games / And approach the car / Whose aggressive color / Has made them let go / Adrift / Their paper boats

It all comes flooding back to me in a flashback / As if through the lens of an old Kodak / I see myself again, a poor little girl / In a winter haze where crack

The phosphorus of a match / And beneath this glow / That flickers and then dies / Filmed by the camera in slow motion / A handsome boy

She rushes forward and cries my name / Then the vision fades / Where are you, Mommy, Daddy / And you, my love, my tenderness

What good are all the riches of a man you don't love?

Gainsbourg.

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Bibliography: The Gainsbook, in the studio with Serge Gainsbourg. S. Merlet. Ed. Seghers.