Serge Gainsbourg – Histoire De Melody Nelson

The first inkling I had of this album was when David Holmes reworked its title track on ‘Don’t Die Just Yet’ from [his 1997 album] Let’s Get Killed. It’s probably how quite a lot of people first heard Serge in the 1990s, I reckon. I remember thinking, my God, what is this? This is brilliant! It’s just a fantastic record – the orchestration, the variety on it, and what’s the fourth track called? [‘Ah Melody’.] Yes! Sometimes I just remember the track numbers, being of that cassette and early CD generation. I loved that lovely guitar arpeggio figure it had. Then the last track, ‘Cargo Culte’, those choral voices on it are absolutely amazing. I remember thinking, I have genuinely never heard anything like this before.