Twenty years ago today Serge Gainsbourg was found dead in his apartment on the Rue De Veuinil , having drunk and smoked himself to death at the premature age of 62. He left behind him a litany of broken promises; to the women he had left or been so abusive toward that he had made it impossible for them to stay. Worse then this he left behind him a number of children who were the real casualties in the wreckage of these relationships. Gainsbourg’s principle interest was always himself, and it is not enough to say that the lifestyle was integral to the work; Gainsbourg himself concedes this near the end when he said ‘I’ve succeeded at everything except my life’. Another philanderer and precociously talented artist, the writer Saul Bellow wanted to know on his deathbed whether he would be remembered as ‘man or schmuck’. He wasn’t talking about the accolades or literary achievements, but rather how he had done as a son, a husband, a friend and a father. Judged by this standard Serge Gainsbourg was a Schmuck, and yet twenty years after his death he continues to enthral and influence fans and musicians, with a body of work that is as substantial as it is unique.

Gainsbourg was born in Paris in 1928 to Jewish parents who had fled to France in 1917 to avoid persecution during the Communist revolution. His early life was heavily shadowed by the onset of the 2nd World War, as a Jew Gainsbourg was forced to wear the Etoile Jaune, a piece of cloth in the shape of the star of David that was worn by all Jews in France who were over the age of six. This early signifier of inferiority had a profound effect on Gainsbourg, as it confirmed him as an outsider in French society, a distrusted émigré who had to establish himself in opposition to mainstream values. In addition to the baggage he carried as a Jew he was bullied as a child for his disproportionately large ears, crooked nose and small stature. In Gainsbourg’s work there is a continual preoccupation with female beauty and it seems that the early rejections he received from girls during his youth, spurred him on to particular success as an adult. For all men, a beautiful woman is a sign of status and a cause for pride, but for Gainsbourg it was more important then just vainglory. It was a rebuttal to all the judgements that had been made of him, growing up as an ugly Jewish kid at a time in which Paris was in the grip of Nazi Germany. Gainsbourg never acknowledged this insecurity, instead choosing to confront questions on his appearance with characteristic defiance, asserting in an interview that ‘ugliness is in a way superior to beauty, because it endures’. And yet one finds it difficult to believe the sincerity of this considering the women he dated, which included the voluptuous Bridgette Bardot and the fiercely Beautiful Jane Birkin with whom he fathered a child.

In 1986 in the twilight of his life, Gainsbourg appeared drunk and dishevelled on French TV and announced to his fellow guest Whitney Houston that he wanted to fuck her. He appeared on another TV interview soon after this, where he called a French Porn star, turned actress a ‘filthy whore’. The first of these can perhaps be written off as Gainsbourg just being ordinarily drunk and lecherous, but the second, oddly puritanical outburst suggests something more significant. This belligerent slurring showed us a man, who was raging at his loss of powers; his music having degenerated into laughable electro in a depressing attempt to stay ‘modern’. His most important love affair with Jane Birkin had finished irrevocably and the lines on his face and circles round his eyes had deepened as if in anticipation of the heart attack that would eventually kill him. He carried on living for six years after the Houston debacle, resorting to more and more outlandish stunts in order to gain publicity (including a song which insinuated an incestuous relationship with his twelve year old daughter entitled ‘Lemon incest).

So far this article has suggested a rather negative response to Gainsbourg’s legacy, this is not because I don’t like him, in fact I think he was one of the best songwriters of the last fifty years. But an appreciation of an artists work does not have to descend into superlatives and Gainsbourg was a very damaged man who often treated those whom he purported to love with selfish cruelty. With all that said, I can return at the end of this article to the songs that he left us, of which there is about three hundred and of that three hundred about a hundred could be described as near masterpieces. My own favourite is the almost unbelievably fine ‘Le Chanson De Prevert’ a song rooted in the French Chanson tradition that was modernised by artists such as Souchon and Renaud. However Gainsbourg elevates the form far above anything these other artists could muster, a song about the residual memory of a relationship it is a perfect triumphant of lyric and melody. Listening to this, and to his other elite work the praise he received from then Prime Minister Francoise Mitterand seems entirely justified. After hearing of Gainsbourg death, he announced ‘He was our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire… He elevated the song to the level of art.’

Twenty years on his Serge’s works of art are still loved across the world, and continue to send tremors through the consciousness of other musicians and writers.