Melody Nelson, an Inside View

Histoire de Melody Nelson is first and foremost the revival of an extraordinary double-act: that of Serge Gainsbourg and Jean-Claude Vannier. For the past ten years or so, there has been recognition of the arrangers who worked with Gainsbourg, who wrote such pieces as La Javanaise and Je t'aime, moi non plus. Often, these shadowy men were co-composers pure and simple, or even composers in their own right. Among the most frequent arrangers were Alain Goraguer (from 1958 to 1964), Michel Colombier (from 1964 to 1969), Jean-Pierre Sabar (from 1975 to 1981) and Jean-Claude Vannier (from 1969 to 1973). In the 60s, the latter was an assistant at Pathé Marconi studios. He made a name for himself with the arrangement for Que je t’aime by Johnny Hallyday and Tous les bateaux, tous les oiseaux by Michel Polnareff. His style is unmistakable: he constantly juggles between orchestral simplicity and a gentle sort of madness expressed through the use of dissonance, and atypical timbres. Vannier and Gainsbourg met in London in December 1968, at the suggestion of a Warner artistic director, Jean-Claude Desmarty. Vannier was then 25, Gainsbourg 41. The latter quickly "tested" the young prodigy on the music from Robert Benayoun's film Paris n'existe pas, and following this successful trial, they worked together on songs for France Gall and Jane Birkin (notably on the album Di Doo Dah in 1973) and on original soundtracks such as Slogan, (1969) Pierre Grimblat's film, on whose set Gainsbourg met Birkin.

Among the scores for films or advertising composed by the two of them, the magnificent score of La Horse stands out: the film was made by Pierre Granier-Deferre with Jean Gabin (1970). Because of its dramatic intensity and certain orchestral colours (notably the strings with their sometimes Arabian-style accents), some consider this dark and frenzied soundtrack to contain the germ of Melody Nelson. In a similar vein, Gainsbourg aficionados may recall a 1970 Martini advert in which we hear snatches of what would later become the motif of the Valse de Melody.