Serge Gainsbourg

Serge Gainsbourg (born Lucien Ginsburg; 2 April 1928 – 2 March 1991) was a French musician, actor, composer, and filmmaker. A major figure in French pop, he was known for provocative work that often sparked controversy and divided audiences in his home country. His music moved from early jazz, chanson, and yé-yé into rock, zouk, funk, reggae, and electronica. This range and his distinct style make him hard to pin down, but his influence is widely acknowledged, and he is considered one of the most important popular musicians globally.

He wrote more than 550 songs, covered over 1,000 times by a wide variety of artists. His lyrics were full of wordplay, often humorous, strange, provocative, sexual, satirical, or subversive. Since dying of a second heart attack in 1991, his music has achieved legendary status in France. Although controversial while alive, he has become one of the country’s most beloved public figures and has a cult following worldwide, with chart hits in the UK for "Je t'aime... moi non plus" and in Belgium for "Bonnie and Clyde."

1928–1956: Early years

Gainsbourg was born in Paris on 2 April 1928 at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital on the Île de la Cité. His parents, Joseph and Olga Ginsburg, were Russian Jewish émigrés. His mother, born Brucha Goda Besman in Feodosiya in 1894, was a mezzo-soprano. His father, born in Constantinople in 1896 to a Ukrainian-Jewish family, studied painting before entering the Petrograd and Moscow Conservatories to train as a classical pianist.

He met and married Olga in Crimea in 1918. After the Russian Revolution, they fled Odessa for Paris via Georgia and Istanbul, arriving in Marseille in 1921 and settling near Olga’s brother, a bank employee. Joseph played piano in bars and casinos, while Olga sang at the Conservatoire Rachmaninoff.

Serge had a twin sister, Liliane, an older brother, Marcel (born 1922, died of pneumonia at sixteen months), and an older sister, Jacqueline (born 1926). The family lived in working-class Paris, first at 35 Rue de la Chine in the 20th arrondissement, then at 11 Rue Chaptal in the 9th. They became French citizens in 1932. Joseph taught Serge and Liliane piano, and at twelve, Serge entered the École Normale de Musique de Paris.

The German occupation of France during World War II deeply affected him. The yellow star Jews were forced to wear haunted him, later fueling his creative work. In early summer 1941, the family briefly hid in Courgenard, Sarthe, at a place called "La Bassetière" with Baptiste and Irma Dumur.

Since Jews were barred from artistic professions, his pianist father moved to Limoges in 1942, then in the unoccupied zone. After Germany occupied that area in 1942, it became unsafe. In January 1944, the rest of the family joined him with forged documents, using the name Guimbard in the town of Grand Vedeix.

Jacqueline and Liliane were hidden with nuns at the Sacré-Cœur school in Limoges, while Lucien (Serge) boarded at a public college in Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat under his false identity for six months. One night, the Gestapo raided the school looking for hidden Jewish children. Warned, officials sent him alone into the forest with an axe to defend himself; he spent the night terrified of being caught and killed.

After Paris was liberated, the family returned to 55 Avenue Bugeaud in the 16th arrondissement. Serge attended Lycée Condorcet but left before finishing his Baccalauréat. In 1945, his father enrolled him at Beaux-Arts de Paris, a prestigious art school.

He later transferred to the Académie de Montmartre, studying under André Lhote and Fernand Léger. There he met his first wife, Elisabeth "Lize" Levitsky, a part-time model and daughter of Russian aristocrats. They married on 3 November 1951 and divorced in 1957.

In 1948, Serge was conscripted for twelve months in Courbevoie. He saw no combat, instead playing bawdy songs on guitar, visiting prostitutes, and drinking.

He later claimed this service turned him into an alcoholic. Afterward, he taught music and painting at a school in Le Mesnil-le-Roi, founded by local rabbis for orphaned children of deportees. There, he heard accounts of Nazi persecution and genocide, which inspired his songwriting decades later.

Disillusioned with teaching, Gainsbourg moved on to odd jobs playing piano in bars, often substituting for his father. He became the house pianist at the drag cabaret club Madame Arthur. While filling out a form to join the songwriting society SACEM, he...