Mick Harvey – Intoxicated Women (Mute)

It has taken 20 years for Mick Harvey, long-time collaborator with Nick Cave, the Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey and others, to ‘complete’ his four album Serge Gainsbourg translation project. 

Flip over your vinyl and you’ll be amazed to see that his name appears on 14 studio albums with the Bad Seeds, a baker’s dozen with various other groups and on at least 11 soundtracks.  He’s also shared the stage with a heap of other artists including as most recently last night in Wellington with PJ Harvey.  But if you look at his solo output his Gainsbourg work dominates at least half of it.  He’s obsessed with the man.

Ultimately, this was always going to be more than just a language exercise, translating those often romantic, sometimes downright pornographic, often verbose, cryptic, floral and sometime disturbing songs from their original French.  Sometimes there is no literal translation for a particular phrase that works in French but in no other language.  And sometimes that’s a good thing, given some of his more risqué subject matter.  I know a French/English translator who told me that in some cases Gainsborough should not be converted because much of his prose loses its playful innocence social criticism when updated into the harsh light of our own modern vernacular.    Whatever the case, understanding and interpreting Gainsborough is an intense scholarly activity for any artist.

Last June Harvey put out Volume 3 – Delirium Tremens – which seems to have been ignored in this part of the world.  This new album, Intoxicated Women, is the final volume – according to the plan, at least – of a 22-year dedication to controversial French icon.

The whole thing began in 1995 with the release of Intoxicated Man, labelled after Gainsbourg’s own popular tune.  At that time, Harvey was working with the Birthday Party and The Bad Seeds, so he was thinking and feeling like a renegade, an outsider, a rebel of sorts and so as a consequence sympathised and sought out those provocateurs.  Having only just passed on Gainsborough had yet to become a cult figure outside France.  He’s best known for his raunchy holiday hit with Jane Birkin (Je T’aime) – which he also performed with Brigitte Bardot – and the scandalous corresponding album Histoire de Melody Nelson.

The story goes that a couple of years after Gainsbourg’s passing Harvey was given a mixtape by a French friend and a light bulb went off.  With time to spare (Crime & the City Solution had just dissolved, and the Bad Seeds were in between work).  So Harvey took off to explore Serge’s music and life.  His first collection of Gainsbourg interpretations, Intoxicated Man (1995) was released through Mute, and two years later came a second volume of Pink Elephants, including one self-penned number (the only one in the series), co-written with orchestral arranger Bertrand Burgalat.

Then there was much silence.  Harvey went on with other stuff, returning only last year to his obsession to release Delirium Tremens.  And now, finally (perhaps?), we get Intoxicated Women in 2017.  On the surface this might not seem like an arduous task, to put together a few Gainsbourg covers, add a little bit of Black Seeds grit and swagger, throw in plenty of perverse innuendo and pump them out.  But this is not just a reworking of James Last’s back catalogue.  It’s been a real labour of love to reinterpret and translate over 56 of Cabbagehead Man’s greatest and some of his lest known chansons and as each album passes Harvey gets more confident to rework and reshape the material.  A case in point is his rethinking of Bonny and Clyde (on Intoxicated Man), which Gainsbourg wrote using Bonnie Parker’s original letters.  Harvey has used Gainsbourg’s tune but he’s gone back to the original correspondence and worked that into the song instead of Serge’s lyrics.

With last year’s Delirium Tremens gave a selection of rare and delightful treats, collaborations and music mostly from Gainsbourg’s soundtracks (he was a composer, director, producer you name it!) penned mostly when the man was on the cusp of greatness. This time, on Intoxicated Women, Harvey chooses songs that were either written as duets, or with a particular ‘woman’ in mind.  In honour of those original ladies Harvey has chosen some wonderful stand-ins to play the parts, including German singer Andrea Schroeder; Cambodian/French music scholar Channthy Kak; Xanthe Waite (who appeared on the last volume); folk singer Jess Ribeiro; Australian jazz chanteuse Sophie Brous and Lyndelle-Jayne Spruyt who also worked on Delirium Tremens; plus as the very ‘male’ voice of little known Aussie vocalist Solomun Harvey who adds his own creepy menace to Baby Teeth, Wolfy Teeth.

All songs were performed originally as duets with exception might be All Day Suckers’ which was originally a duet for French yé-yé singer Frances Gall.  This one is just done by Harvey himself crooning over the singsong nursery rhyme-like tune but still taking great delight to emphasis is pervy lyrics, with school boy glee.  Gall who was only 19 at the time never dueted the song.  Upon reading the lyrics she was reported to have been ‘distraught’ at being conned into working by a man twice her age and was terrified of the potential scandal. See for yourself: “Annie loves all those suckers as the slippery sugar perfumed with anise flows into her throat / Annie finds it heavenly.”  I suspect even Nicki Menaj or Lil’ Kim wouldn’t have touched that one.

Speaking of sleazy there’s one duet that makes a perverted reappearance – Je t’aime (moi non plus), which is translated not only into English, as you’d expect, but into German (now called Ich Lieberman Dich…Ich Dich Auch Nicht).  As a sometime resident of Berlin this is no surprise. Harvey’s fluent in the language and by making his version into German he can get it to be much more raunchy than his earlier English rendition.  It also challenges our own conceptions about which languages are supposedly ‘more sexy’ and he pumps up the ‘R’ rating with additional heavy breathing. But is Andrea Schroder’s version steamier that Bardot or Birkin’s versions?  We are talking about a song that was used to promote everything from yogurt and perfume to beer?  That’s like trying to quantify Chris Knox’s Not Given Lightly as a romantic song when it’s been used to sell toast bread.  However his song never sounded like the soundtrack to some 1970’s soft porn film.  Whether it’s better than the others is probably a moot point.  None the less Harvey’s version of Je t’aime (moi non plus) it’s still a powerfully erotic number and definitely not one to put on at a dinner party with the in-laws. It’s the perfect example finely exemplifies the confidence Harvey has acquired reworking Gainsbourg’s oeuvre over the years.

There’s one or two clunky moments here, especially on the delightfully twee 60’s Euro pop Contact, performed by Channithy Kak and Xanthe Waite.  And then there’s the big ballad The Eyes to Cry.  In another decade this would be an instant choice for a Bond film soundtrack, delivered by Shirley Bassey.  As it is, this is a lighter touch, with Sophia Brous’ soft, smoky vocals wrapped around the very restrained orchestrations make it deliciously sensual but lack the real impact and bombast it really needs.

Over all, I’d have to say that there are no songs here that don’t work – at least on some level.  I think you’ll find this a great introduction to Gainsborough and for those that know him better, perhaps an interesting rethink.  Some might not always think Harvey’s material stand up against the originals but that will always be the case for the purists.  Having said that, one of the coolest lounge numbers here, God Smokes Havanas, featuring Schroeder and Harvey, works much better for an English speaker such as myself, laying on the smarminess and channelling Serge’s French arrogance beautifully: “Smoking can send you to the promised land/Darling, take my hand”.   Which is all too wickedly poignant, given Gainsbourg died of a heart attack just before his 63^rd birthday, partially no doubt, due to an over indulgence in smoking his trademark Gitanes, among other evils.

Tim Gruar