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To Serge With Love

RJ Smith, Spin, March 1997

SERGE GAINSBOURG was an unrepentant slave to lust and liquor. He recorded 'Lemon Incest' with his then 13-year-old daughter — in the video, they sang together in bed, he in pajama bottoms, she wearing the tops. He wrote tributes to anal sex. For over a quarter of a century, until his death in 1991, Gainsbourg was the love god of incredibly strange music. And the French — what a culture — they loved him for it! His lewd, literary lounge pop was banned by the Catholic Church and the BBC, yet at home he went platinum.

Total word count of piece: 545

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