Serge GAINSBOURG - Autograph manuscript. “Rereading your letter”

Serge Gainsbourg (1928.1991)

Autograph musical manuscript. “ Rereading your letter”

One pages in-4° in black ink.

[Paris. 1961]

Precious musical manuscript of one of the most famous and cynical songs of the young Serge Gainsbourg, symbol of his first texts with misogynistic airs, of his fierce, offbeat and black humor, which introduced a new tone in French song.

This jaded seducer who rereads the pathetic letter sent to him by his conquest on the verge of suicide, coldly noting all the spelling mistakes it contains has something of the Valmont of Dangerous Liaisons . The unflattering vision of women that emerges from this text did not prevent Barbara from resuming it in 1969.

______________________________________________________________

 

It is you that I love

(Only takes an M)

Above all

 Don't tell me

(Is there one missing)

That you don't care

 

I beg you

 (Dot on the i)

Trust me 

I am the slave

Without serious accent

Appearances

 

I will end it

To keep me

(Only takes a d)

So much resentment

You have no heart

There is no error

(There, there is one)

 

I will die

(Is not French)

Don't you understand?

It will be your fault

It will be your fault

(There, there aren't any)

 

I point out to you

That gardenal

Don't take any

But only take one

Stamp, at least

Don't take two

 

It will calm you down

And you will see

Everything falls apart

The cockroach, the tears

heartache

o, e in water

______________________________________________________________

 

En relision ta lettre (for which Gainsbourg also composed the music) was deposited at SACEM on January 25, 1961. The song appears on the singer's third album, entitled L'Étonnant Serge Gainsbourg , on which we also find La Chanson de Prévert .

Provenance: Lucien Merer (1927-2019), pianist, composer and arranger who 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. .