Couleur Café - Serge Gainsbourg
imagine you die and your fans smoke cigarettes at your grave in your honor
By Julianna
Few artists have achieved such high accolades from the music, fashion, and film world as Serge Gainsbourg. A pioneer of modern French pop, a lover to many notable French women, including the fashion designer Jane Birkin, and a master of controversy, Gainsbourg captured the hearts of many around the world, and his discography is as extensive as his life story.
Gainsbourg was born in Istanbul to Russian Jewish parents, later fleeing to Paris during the Russian Revolution. He changed his name from Lucien Ginsburg to Serge Gainsbourg (after the English painter Thomas Gainsbourough). Originally a painter, Gainsbourg turned to music after he was inspired by Boris Vian’s comedic and provocative music at Milord l’Arsouille club, later accompanying Michèle Arnaud at the same venue. Arnaud encouraged Gainsbourg to perform on stage the following day, where he sang his famous “Le Poinçonneur des Lilas”. The song describes the monotonous day in the life of a Paris Métro ticket worker who is so disillusioned with his job that he thinks about stamping a hole in his head.
But the song I’m about to introduce isn’t as dark as that. It’s actually about a woman, but more specifically, the color of the woman’s hair and skin (this was very controversial but not for obvious reasons that we may think of now, but rather because he was singing about interracial relationships). “Couleur Café” is the eighth track off the experimental Gainsbourg Percussions record — a transitory period in Gainsbourg’s musicality. Largely regarded as a pop artist before this 1964 record, Gainsbourg experimented with Latin, African, and Cuban sounds and styles to produce a highly advanced piece of work in his incorporation of world music with Western styles. He effortlessly positioned French chanson onto African drum beats and choruses, inspired by Miriam Makeba (a.k.a. Mama Africa), a South African singer-songwriter, and Babatunde Olatunji, a Nigerian drummer.
In the 1960s, France was struggling with issues of national identity after decades-long colonial hold over Northern Africa. Despite decolonization successes by Tunisia and Morocco at the end of the 1950s, many French people still held on to colonial attitudes, which is especially present in music and other artistic mediums. The co-optation of African and Latin musical style by Gainsbourg can thus be an obvious example of this, but he thought of this as a display of his music’s authenticity.
Lyonnaise drummer André Arpino’s Afro-Latin rhythms open the track, giving way to Gainsbourg’s softly-spoken lyrics about a “coffee-colored” woman. He carries this metaphor throughout the song. My favorite example is at the end:
“L’amour sans philosopher
C’est comme le café
Très vite passé
Mais que veux-tu que j’y fasse
On en a marre de café
Et c’est terminé”
For all of you non-Francophones, this translates to:
“Love without philosophizing
It’s like coffee
It passes quickly
But what do I do about it
We get tired of coffee
And it’s over”
I like this especially because it gets a little shallow and exotifying to talk about a woman’s skin color over and over again. This final verse encapsulates what Gainsbourg is truly best at.
The choral break gives way to an entrancing brass solo and layered over a Latin-style guitar melody — perhaps one of the most dancy parts of the song.
The song’s innovation and experimentation with different world styles represent a turning point in Gainsbourg’s career. The album and “Couleur Café” in particular are a unique dividing line between Gainsbourg’s pop style and yé-yé style, which he descends into deeper into his career as he becomes more involved with younger female French singers.