et prononça ce mot: almería

The pure energy and excitement of this song affected me when I first uncovered it in a secondhand record shop in London's Soho in 1982. It made me want to live in Paris. How many songs make you want to relocate ? In my case, several. The classical strings, the brass and the chorus. Bir Hakeim: the overground metro thundering over the Seine. He wrote it for Brigitte Bardot after their affair had ended. It was recorded in a studio in around 1968 when, amidst the student protests that sent volleys of Molotov cocktails up the Champs Élysées, Charles de Gaulle sought refuge at a German air base and watched as metropolitan France gradually moved from a conservative tradition to a more liberal morality by force of its young populace. Across La Manche, the Swinging Sixties were well under way, dazzling the world with dramatically raised hemlines, rediscovered Mondrianism and an overdose of Vanessa Redgrave. France was not particularly fashionable in the late 1960s. But I like this video because, even in its monochromatic and crude visual effect typical of the time; its attempt at startling diversion - nevertheless it captures the message of the singer through stillness. Stillness. The Gauloise fogged inertia of a smoking, poet protangonist who wears very nice shoes and does not give a fuck. That is a lost art. He does not perform before the camera - the camera performs for him. Serge Gainsbourg.

A chaque mouvement
On entendait
Les clochettes d'argent
De ses poignets
Agitant ses grelots
Elle avança
Et prononça ce mot :
Alméria