Serge Gainsbourg (1928.1991)
Signed typewritten manuscript – Flashback.
One page in-4° with corrections and redactions. Slnd [Paris. 1972]
Full text of the song Flash-Back written for Petula Clark.
Magnificent document – with nostalgic accents by Melody Nelson – corrected in the text by Gainsbourg.
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Flashback
I returned to my street
Under the gray sky of my youth
Where the brick walls stand
In dead-end passages.
a heavy heart I went down
Slowly of my Mercédace
The children were saying who is this
Opening big, innocent eyes
They stop their hoop games
And approach the car
Whose aggressive color
Made them let go
Adrift
Their paper boats
Everything comes back to me in a flashback
Like under the lens of an old Kodak
I see myself again, poor little girl
In a winter halo where it cracks
The phosphorus of a match
And under this light
Who falters and then dies
Shot by camera in slow motion
A pretty boy
Runs up and screams my name
Then the vision fades
Where are you mom dad
And you my love my tenderness
What good is all wealth?
Of a man we don't like
Gainsbourg.
Bibliography: The Gainsbook, in the studio with Serge Gainsbourg. S. Merlet. Ed. Seghers.