Serge GAINSBOURG - Original Signed Autograph Manuscript - "Les Goémons" - 1962

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Serge GAINSBOURG - Original Signed Autograph Manuscript - "Les Goémons" - 1962:
$68424.00

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Serge GAINSBOURG (1928.1991)

Signed Autograph Manuscript - Les Goémons.

Three folio pages on musical paper.

Sacem stamps.

[Paris. February 1962]

"Brown or red algae, under the wave move, goemons"

Exceptional manuscript titled in black ink, on the first sheet, " LES GOÉMONS lyrics music by Serge Gainsbourg and covering on the second and third sheets the original lyrics in the first draft (finally unretained and partially crossed out) as well as the original score.

Les Goémons, recorded at Studio Blanqui on March 16, 1962, will be the introductory title to the artist’s fourth album titled Serge Gainsbourg n°4.

the goemons

brown or red algae
under the wave move
the goemons
kelp or coral
so many seagrasses
of goemonswhat do they dance at the ra-
camera lens
the goemons
it is in white foam
the posthumous paavane
goemonsbrown or red algae
under the wave move
the goemons
navigate between two waters
two lovers who intrigue
the goemonsin the siren song
came the policemen
aux goemons
from cars to headlights
searched the dark night
the goemonsbrown or red algae
under the wave move
the goemons
found together
chained it seems to me
aux goemonslet their loves live again
to lascivious dance
goemons
in the cry of the seagulls
when the ocean rejects
the goemons

brown or red algae

under the wave move

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In early 1962, Catherine Sauvage decided to devote, like Juliette Gréco three years earlier, an entire EP to Gainsbourg’s songs. The deaf rivalry between the two singers and the recent success ofAccordion encourage it in this direction. Always looking for recognition, Gainsbourg nevertheless engaged with caution in this commission, wary of Catherine Sauvage's left bank positioning, more focused on poetry set to music than commercial song [...]

Les Goémons, maritime-sounding title, the origin of which is unveiled by Gainsbourg, came to present the acetate of his freshly mixed No. 4 album, April 22, 1962 in "Previews": "It's upon hearing Damia. There's a pay for that, she was singing "The Gulls". » This dark lament in memory of the sailors missing at sea was, in 1912, the first success of the great Damia, the brazen tragedy of the realistic song. Beyond an almost similar metric, we find here in this first handwritten draft of Goemons, the image of souls (those of the sailors at Damia, lovers at Gainsbourg) reincarnated as seagulls, while their corpses are carried by the waves - idea that will have disappeared in the final text.

Narrative and cinematic, this first version plays on the double meaning of the word "mermaid", already used in the Ballad of a Fat Major ("I would do just like Ulysses / Police Sirens / Deaf Ear [...]"). Catherine Sauvage will actively contribute to text editing and final editing, completed only three days prior to registration playback for the Gainsbourg LP. The final version is essentially focused on following the throbbing movement of algae in the waves, like that of bodies hugged in ecstasy.

"Algae has the science of movement. And then it's also an erotic image, if you will," observes Gainsbourg at Luc Bérimont's microphone in "Avant-premières".

Image will make its way to Gainsbourg: 1967, with I love you either ("Like the Unresolved Wave / I Come and Go...") then, in 1984, in Love on the Beat ("But you are already swinging / To the ebb and flow of the tides").

Catherine Sauvage will record Les Goémons in a female transposed version on April 6, along with the other three tracks on her EP. (Quoted in The Gainsbook. S. Merlet. Seghers Editions. 2019).

Provenance: Lucien Merer (1927-2019), pianist, composer and arranger who accompanied Gainsbourg from his earliest steps. Merer collaborated with several other big names in the music scene: Boby Lapointe, Jean Ferrat, Cora Vaucaire, Édith Piaf, Léo Ferré or Charles Aznavour, sometimes assisting them during their debut or singing tours in cabarets and concert halls.

Bibliography:

. The integral and cætera. Y.F. Bouvier, Éditions Bartillat, 2005.

. The Gainsbook. S. Merlet. Seghers Editions. 2019

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