2023-07-16 16:33:56
With her look of an eternal young girl from the sixties and her little so British accent, Jane Birkin revealed her intimate side to us. On April 16, 2021, she confided in the editorial staff of Tarn libre before canceling all her concerts.
You are back on the road…
It is a joy. What I like regarding touring is not Paris, it’s not England that scares me, it’s not New York, it’s coming to see people, moving them, be with them for two hours. It’s really worth it. I’m so terrified of being on trial in large halls that I wouldn’t do that job if I didn’t go on the road, if I didn’t discover unexpected people, cities, places. What wonderful memories.
Twelve years to return following “Winter Children”, why?
The album was very personal, maybe too much in the grief of having lost the childhood where I showed a lot of myself. Afterwards my diaries were published and I had laid down my cards. Etienne Daho had been nagging me for years to do something around “Oh! Sorry, you were sleeping…”, a play I had written. But we had other things to do, Etienne was busy on my daughter Lou’s record. For my part, I was on the Symphonique for Serge, where it seemed to me that I had done the most magnificent work for his work and his memory. Finally my moment arrived and I ran to Etienne.
Your daughter Kate is part of this album…
She died seven years ago, I had remained very silent. I had two texts written in the sadness, the melancholy of my hotel room when I was doing the Gainsbourg Symphonic. Etienne put them to somewhat violent music by Jean-Louis Piérot. And it was very good. It was a little shocking but it was what I needed. This song for Kate, a softer one to evoke the cemetery, another in English to talk regarding ghosts. Then we were able to go back and talk regarding jealousy, love at first sight that doesn’t last… Etienne cut out all the texts from my play that seemed interesting to him and he made songs out of them. The work is remarkable. I benefited from all his enthusiasm for my writing. Having someone rave regarding me was very exciting.
Why do you say you don’t believe in yourself?
It’s one thing to be clever or to be good at dialogue, but to cut it into songs… I was with a great master. It’s a way of expressing yourself and I thought you had to be a real maestro. I had already admired “L’invitation” by Etienne Daho where it seemed to me that I was part of each title. I understood his distress of disappointed loves, his father… I was in his world. It suited me and gave me confidence. He carried my words to music without changing them. He was a fan of my way of writing, where the others rather corrected me.
To have Serge who lifts you to the skies, exposes you, writes albums for you, transforms you into a fantasy… the years were marvelous.
Jane Birkin
Your writing is poetic…
I don’t master the masculine feminine, but I’m looking for the words, maybe it’s due to Serge who was very sharp in his way of expressing himself. He was a real poet like Rimbaud or Apollinaire, I express open wounds. I am the opposite of Serge who was so precise and concise. He put a maximum of feelings into a minimum of words. I can’t, I’m a talker.
How do you view the young woman you were in the 1970s?
It’s fun to see each other once more. Easter weekend I was in a studio reading my diary. I was so surprised, even amused to see that we don’t change that much. “Oh ! Pardon tu slept…” that I wrote in my time, I might have done it in the time of Jacques Doillon, of John Barry. I see myself at 17, in tears, asking John to listen to me, that I had so many things to ask him, if he loved me, if he would still love me… He sent me to cry in an other room. The insecurity, the cold at night, the feeling of being apart from them and yet so lonely… this diary taught me that concerns are the same. It was so naive and the fights, with Serge, charming on such minor pretexts, so funny, that it was a pleasure to reread the years with him. Before things turn sour, alcohol and fame melt on him. I loved Serge Gainsbourg and he became Gainsbarre. I’m so happy to have noted everything down every night and not to have lost a drop of his charm, to have captured Kate and then Charlotte with his chiseled character. When Charlotte brought me back to rue de Verneuil, to make her documentary, I was so far from what I was that I had a hard time realizing that I lived in this little kitchen… Everything was tiny, it was like coming back to my childhood home. It was a golden prison, a marvel of a small museum.
A life ended with Serge Gainsbourg…
When I left rue de Verneuil, I had my own house, it was freedom. I picnicked on the grass with the children, I fucked up my mess as I wanted. So many things have opened up to me. With him I had all the artistic side but it continued in another way. I discovered directors that I had never imagined. I’ve had so many lives that it’s strange to go back, to visit the places where Serge’s last images are printed: Serge dead, how he was carried up the stairs… scary things. I find a treasure in my diaries. When I write them it is the truth seen by me. Memory is not lacking and does not embellish.
From muse with Serge you have become a disturbing person…
It’s all my luck. I had been so unhappy in my marriage to John Barry that I was delighted to be used by Serge. I felt so miserable that I mightn’t imagine being attractive. To have Serge who lifts you to the skies, exposes you, writes albums for you, transforms you into a fantasy… the years were marvelous. Serge was a wonderful character.
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#Interview #Jane #Birkin #express #open #wounds
