Should I be ashamed to love art that could be interpreted as pedophilic?

[Wat_Tyler]

This is one of my favourite records - Serge Gainsbourg's 'Histoire du Melody Nelson'. The orchestration of classical instruments and rock ones is extraordinary, perhaps unmatched outside of the work of George Martin and Robert Kirby. The songs are brilliantly constructed, and the production is perfect - it's a clear ancestor of Air's Moon Safari.

And yet, there's the subject matter. It's about the doomed love of a middle-aged French businessman for an underage English schoolgirl from Sunderland. It doesn't shy away from the implications - it takes an amoral stance, merely documenting the infatuation. In short, it is the rock and roll 'Lolita'. If one understands French well enough to take in the lyrics, it is really rather creepy.
Gainsbourg was well aware of all of this - he loved to provoke, to unsettle, to challenge. It's clear to me that he is not celebrating pedophilia, but is dealing with a taboo subject in order to raise disquieting questions for society. He is detaching himself from the moral implications, leaving them unanswered, leaving it to us to decide. This, one could either consider a cop-out, or a posed question. After all, this is a work about the love between a middle-aged man and a fifteen year old.
I guess what I'm asking is, should these moral concerns affect what is, musically, a wonderful work?

[dolo amber]

1. Well, since it's you...

Yes. Sick bastard.

edit: And you spelt 'paedophilic' wrong, too.

[Wat_Tyler]

2. Phew.

Glad that's settled.
Wanna shag?

[dolo amber]

4. Only if you play that record

Grrrr, baby!

[Wat_Tyler]

OK!

You are old enough, right?

[Wat_Tyler]

63. I was accomodating the colonials and their quaint grammatical quirks.

[CanuckAmok]

3. No, fuck that.

By that logic, one should not enjoy "Guernica", because of its violent imagry.


Besides, as a 37 year old male, a future of lusting after women half my age begins a mere three years from now...don't rain on my parade.

[Wat_Tyler]

7. True. People view it differently though. Anything that even touches on

pedophilia is a taboo, unlike Guernica.

[CanuckAmok]

53. I'm gonna get flamed for this, but....

... up until the last 100 years or so, it wasn't uncommon for men Gainsbourg's age to be 'married' to teen girls. And I'm not talking about a brief period in our culture; more like dating back to prehistory.

I mean, people used to breed at far younger ages, and I suggest that lusting after women in their teens and early 20s is an atavistic instinct, triggered by the need to reproduce as often as possible.

I imagine Gainsbourg, and the man who chased after Nabokov's "Lolita", are not so much pedophiles, as they are men who are wrestling with the relatively recent societal restraints on pan-generational sexuality. How they choose to express or repress their desires is a matter for the courts, I suppose.

Before anyone accuses me of doing so, I'll state that I'm not in favour of pedophilia or anything like that, and I completely understand the reasons behind society's sexual evolution. I'm just suggesting that the kind of longing Gainsbourg and Nabokov expressed was based in biological need, and societal guilt which contradicts it.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

12. Damn right man!

Don't take any guff from that swine!

[Bluebear]

5. If his intent is to promote a dialogue, not tittilate, certainly not!

Storebought Asian brides for American GI's are not to be celebrated but Madama Butterfly does not celebrate the subject. Poulenc's Dialogue of the Carmelites is set amongst violence and suicide but is a harrowing, beautiful work.

[Wat_Tyler]

6. True. Not everyone makes the distinction though.

It's sometimes difficult to explain artistic intent to the raging mob.

[Bluebear]

9. I wondered why everything from Amazon comes in plain brown wrappers

It's SMUT like this!

[Wat_Tyler]

15. Yeah.

Must be run by pinko-queer Libruls.

[Magrittes Pipe]

8. The far more disturbing record was his duet with his daughter Charlotte.

Inceste du citron (lemon incest)
Je t'aime t'aime, je t'aime plus que tout (papa papa)
Naïve comme une toile du nierdoi sseaurou, tes baisers sont si doux
Inceste du citron (lemon incest)
Je t'aime t'aime, je t'aime plus que tout (papa papa)
L'amour que nous n'f'rons jamais ensemble,
Est le plus beau, le plus violent, le plus pur, le plus enivrant
Exquise esquisse, delicieuse enfant, ma chair et mon sang,
Oh mon bébé mon ame
Inceste du citron (lemon incest)
Je t'aime t'aime, je t'aime plus que tout (papa papa)
Naïve comme une toile du nierdoi sseaurou, tes baisers sont si doux
Inceste du citron (lemon incest)
Je t'aime t'aime, je t'aime plus que tout (papa papa)
L'amour que nous n'f'rons jamais ensemble,
Est le plus rare, le plus troublant, le plus pur, le plus emouvant
Exquise esquisse, delicieuse enfant, ma chair et mon sang,
Oh mon bébé mon ame
Inceste du citron (lemon incest)
Je t'aime t'aime, je t'aime plus que tout (papa papa)
Naïve comme une toile du nierdoi sseaurou, tes baisers sont si doux
Inceste du citron (lemon incest)
Je t'aime t'aime, je t'aime plus que tout (papa papa)
L'amour que nous n'f'rons jamais ensemble,
Est le plus rare, le plus troublant, le plus pur, le plus enivrant
Exquise esquisse, delicieuse enfant, ma chair et mon sang,
Oh mon bébé mon ame
Inceste du citron (lemon incest)
Je t'aime t'aime, je t'aime plus que tout (papa papa)

[Wat_Tyler]

18. You're on your own there, Hedge.

That may be a provocation too far.

[Magrittes Pipe]

28. The amazing thing was, Serge was aghast when people took offense.

He couldn't even comprehend that people would hear him singing a song called "Lemon Incest" with his 13-year-old daughter could be taken, by some people, as a sign that he was actually engaging in sexual behavior with her.

Clearly, the lyrics speak of "the love we will never make together." It's not about actually doing it with his daughter; but it was certainly silly of him to think that it wouldn't be interpreted that way.

[Wat_Tyler]

29. Totally disingenuous.

Gainsbourg could out-provoke a thousand Malcolm McLarens. He knew what he was doing.

[Magrittes Pipe]

30. Half-disingenuous.

Yes, he meant to provoke.

However, he never thought that anyone would actually believe he was molesting his own daughter.

edit: He wanted people to say "holy shit, he's singing about fucking his daughter," not "holy shit, he's fucking his daughter."

[Wat_Tyler]

31. I dunno.

He always seemed to me to be the kind of guy who would calculate all the angles before taking a shot like that. A lot of people out there operate on only one, literal level. It's almost impossible to explain detachment and nuance to them when all they see is a guy fucking his daughter.

[Magrittes Pipe]

36. Part of why he was always dating women in their late teens and early 20s

...was that, in a sense, he operated in a state of arrested adolescence himself. He was a genius, musically and lyrically, he was a brilliant provacateur, a masterful manipulator of the media & the masses -- but he was also quite naive at times, and I DON'T believe he always thought things through.

He was also horrified at the backlash against him for "Aux Armes, et Caetera" -- as though NOBODY could POSSIBLY be offended by a reggae version of their national anthem. And I believe his shock on that occasion, also, to be genuine.

[Wat_Tyler]

38. Perhaps I'm projecting my own jaded, cynical worldview onto him.

Which is something he'd like, I imagine.

Still, he got out of that nasty scrape in Strasbourg with the paratroopers on the tour after "Aux Armes" pretty nicely. A wily man.

[Magrittes Pipe]

43. He'd love that.

And yes, his escape was brilliant: a textbook reading of "La Marseillaise," followed by the classic "fuck you" gesture. Beautiful.

[tjdee]

10. No. And also, no.

You know how I was feeling about the Stones' "Brown Sugar"... but overall I have to admit that musical quality is the highest aim of a performer/composer, and that goal is completely independent of moral implications.

The thing about issues such as the Lolita situation as done by...Nabokov I guess, and Gainsbourg here... is that there is at the heart of it something worth exploring, which is why they chose the subject.

Oh--and since it's a doomed relationship, it's all good then.

[Wat_Tyler]

13. I think questions like those posed by Nabokov and Gainsbourg

intend to make society question it's relationship with underage sexuality and the nature of sexual relationships.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

11. Well there's this classic

[Wat_Tyler]

14. Is that a young Dave Mustaine?

[JohnKleeb]

17. haha

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

19. No this is

[JohnKleeb]

21. I can see the resemblance though

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

24. Imagine if this was in color!!

We'd have a triumverate

[JohnKleeb]

40. hahaha

[name not needed]

59. Did I miss anything?

[name not needed]

58. .

[RetroLounge]

23. Oooh, I had that Album in High School

My mom was disturbed by that.

RL

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

26. Yeah but it was a great album!

[Wat_Tyler]

27. No wonder, eh?

[Dookus]

16. Nah..

you da mann. Thomas Mann.

[Wat_Tyler]

20. Neat.

Thanks Dook.

It wouldn't be DU without folks like you.

[terrya]

22. Well, "Death in Venice" is a favorite of mine.

And that most certainly is pedophilic.

Art is art. And if it doesn't prompt you to engage in pedophilic behavior in real life, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying something that is pedophilic in content.

[Wat_Tyler]

25. This is true.

Of course, on a level playing field, such art as 'Death In Venice', 'Lolita' or 'Melody Nelson' would be viewed in the same way as 'Rambo' or 'Trainspotting' - but this is very much one of the few remaining taboos.

[asthmaticeog]

32. I've been earwormed with "Don't Stand So Close to Me" lately. That count?

Oh, and also, I Google the word "Lolita" a lot.

[Wat_Tyler]

33. Yes. Yes it does.

But for totally different reasons.

[eyepaddle]

34. Uhhh Oh!

It's not so much the pedophilia that has me concerned. It's "the orchestration of classical and rock instruments" that has me worried. If somebody didn't know better they'd think you might have, er, shall we say "progressive" tendencies!

I just KNEW there was something fishy about anybody named Wat.

[Wat_Tyler]

35. NO! IT'S NOT TRUE! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's way too short to be prog, anyway - it's only about 28 minutes long.

[eyepaddle]

39. Nice try....

you are SO busted.....

[Wat_Tyler]

41. NOOOO!!!! I CLING VIOLENTLY TO THE DOOR OF MY NON-PROG CLOSET!!!!!!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Magrittes Pipe]

37. Nah. The whole album's shorter than some prog songs.

edit: I see Wat's already taken this one.

[eyepaddle]

42. Seriously though,

While it probably isn't for everybody, most people can separate discussion of a topic from advocacy for a topic. The Murder Ballad is a deeply entrenched folk (can I use the word "idiom" here?)....style. I am pretty sure most people who like "Pretty Polly" aren't in favor of murder.

on edit: punctuation goof--sorry.

[saltpoint]

44. Hi, Wat_Tyler. Here's just one person's notion of this:

There are in the world's museums any number of paintings depicting the infant Christ, naked, genitalia fully evident. By the standards of the moralists, these pictures are pedophilic, literally and clinically, "attraction to pre-pubescent children." The young woman in the picture you provide does not look especially pre-pubescent to me.

One of the first acts of fascist regimes is to round up the intellectuals and artists, brand them as threateningly decadent, and then imprison or beat them up, or both, and then destroy their work. Fascists are pussies and only brave in group numbers carrying large sticks to bully somebody. I say fuck 'em.

I hope you are not encountering anybody in the real world who is hassling you over this. My personal reaction is to offer to come over to your house when this happens and I will help you kick their ass. I bet several other DUers would come along, too.

That's just one person's opinion.

[Wat_Tyler]

45. Thank you.

Now you make me feel totally guilty for inventing a James Taylor song. Which I deserve.

[saltpoint]

47. No, no. I have thick enough skin to handle a shot or two --

-- on James Taylor. My own family nearly disowned me when I brought home the Apple album... imagine them being threatened by "Carolina in my Mind" !

Anyway, I think art, including music, needs to answer to higher, more complex laws than the piddly ones on the books. One poster here referenced DEATH IN VENICE. What teacher of world literature would argue to remove it from the shelves?

I say stand with your own instincts when an artist presents a compelling vision. That's the greatest, truest allegiance.

And I'm serious about that posse. I kin throw on them boots jest about any time. Feel free to holler.

Much respect & good wishes.

[eyepaddle]

48. Hey Old Crusoe!

I looked in you profile--are you serious about sea shanties? You see, nautical history is one of my main interests, and I've see lyrics to a few shanties (as they are called in the British books at any rate) but not the music--can ya help a fellow out?

(I only looked to see if there was something in ther that explained Wat's James Taylor remark--I'm still in the dark on that.)

[saltpoint]

51. Hi, eyepaddle.

I was afraid that Wat_Tyler was getting hassled for what he was listening to, and that prompted my response. The man has a major brain and I look forward to his posts. Night before last, I ran a "Best James Taylor Composition" poll -- that was that reference.

Anyway, on sea chanteys. I do like 'em. And the limerick form also. Let me gross you out right away, and then you can decide if you want to ride this bus or not:

There once was a young man from Boston
Who drove around in a cute little Austin
There was room for his ass
And a gallon of gas
But his balls hung out and he lost 'em.

----

[eyepaddle]

55. Ride it? Hell,

what do I need to do to buy a pass?

Here's one I like:

Was ye ever in Timbuctoo
where the gals are black and blue
An' they wiggle their bustles too
Way hay an away we go
donkey ridin' donkey ridin'

Was ye ever off Cape Horn
Where the weather's never warm
An ye wish to hell ye'd never been born
Ridin' on a donkey


Well, pretty much any of 'em with that "way hay" stuff in 'em

Yaarrrrrgh,

[saltpoint]

56. Love it. A cold beer will be consumed in your honor at my house --

-- by damn.

It's lively as hell and I love it.

Much appreciated, eyepaddle. Smooth sailin', matey.

[chenGOD]

60. or...

There was a young man from Stamboul
Who soliloquized thus to his tool:
"You took all my wealth
And you ruined my health,
And now you won't pee, you old fool.

[Wat_Tyler]

49. I wouldn't call it a shot at Taylor per se.

I'm just strangely drawn to the idea of him doing Gangsta rap.

[eyepaddle]

52. I missed that whole story

as addicted as I've become to DU I can't stay current with EVERYTHING that goes on here!

However if James Taylor were to do a gangsta rap, I'm not sure that wouldn't create some sort of tear in the temporal fabric of the universe.

Not that's necessarily a bad thing...I'm just sayin' is all...

[saltpoint]

54. It's funny, Wat_Tyler. Taylor doing gansta rap.

I think the closest he comes to rawly offending people is in "Chili Dog," which doesn't appear to be about food:

"Make my bed out of Wonder bread
Spread some mustard on my head..."

etc.

[Zomby Woof]

46. As Zappa once said...

"I once wrote a song about dental floss. That didn't make everyone's teeth get cleaner."

And that was someone not shy about composing pieces of a taboo or controversial nature. (Think 'Brown Shoes Don't Make It' and its underage/incest reference as one example of many, and that was in 1967).

[Wat_Tyler]

50. Zappa would know.

Another great boundary tester.

[Magrittes Pipe]

57. By the way, Wat... Melody was fourteen, not fifteen.

"Quatorze automnes et quinze etes" -- just short of her 15th birthday, it seems.

What a dirty old Frenchman!

[Wat_Tyler]

62. Feh. I was rounding up.

You're just trying to make it worse for him, aintch?

[NuttyFluffers]

61. nah. i love "Piss Christ" and was raised catholic. kinda the same.

people ask me why i love that work and it's because it evokes such passionate residual feeling i have after leaving the religion i was brought up with. to me it is a religious piece exalting mysteries i was familiar with being raised in the faith. it somehow comes to this through the backdoor of what many would see as profane. but to me Piss Christ is a deeply moving work touching a long buried sacred chord from my long abandoned faith of childhood.

good art can be like that -- deeply controversial, and yet through controversy come to an entirely different evocation. transcendence through shock, as i like to think of it. and is not one of the big goals of art is to seek a window into transcendence?

[Wat_Tyler]

64. It's (if I may be vaguely pretentious) situationism - if I understand it.

Creating confrontational situations to demonstrate the hidden truth of a subject.

[eyepaddle]

68. There's really nothing vague about the

pretentiousness of that--it's wide out in the open

Nonetheless there's a large amount of truth to it.

PS Rush ROOLZ!

[Wat_Tyler]

69. Yeah, I'm a hypocrite.

Does this in any way surprise you?

[eyepaddle]

71. LOL.

Aren't we all, on some level?

But for the record--most of Rick Wakeman's solo projects WERE horrible, horrible ideas!

The really strange thing is, I've heard him on XM radio and he's not a bad stand-up comic. Now if that doesn't bend your head, I don't know what will.

And just how large IS your music collection?

[Wat_Tyler]

74. My own physical record collection has been depleted by a lot of moving.

Mostly, it's on the computer, apart from a couple of hundred CD's and LP's.

[eyepaddle]

76. Man, that'll do it,

I remember an especially "mobile" phase of my life, I lost shit like beds, tables, TV's, it just somehow "went away." AFter about six months I was down to a guitar, three pillows and a bag of clothing. I'm not such nomad anymore, but I still keep a pretty lean inventory. My music collection, while it still continues to grow isn't all that large--maybe 130 albums worth of stuff.

[Wat_Tyler]

77. That's not bad though - it weeds out the stuff you don't listen to.

[NuttyFluffers]

78. tell me about it. if it wasn't for the computer...

i'd have to toss boxes of the stuff.

i got around 90% (i think) of my CDs in my computer/iPod, but i'm still coming across a few CDs every now and then just lost in the house. i'm looking at 250+ albums on my computer, but then there's still all the vinyl, cassettes, and a few 8 tracks that needs to be put into aac/mp4. gotta get me an iMic... literally boxes of lps, probably 1/2 dozen small boxes full of cassettes, most of them albums of stuff that hasn't been bothered to be fully transfered into CD. and the biggest pain in the ass is those concert bootlegs; lost covers, live sets, and b-sides; and forgotten remixes. you gotta listen to the album, test it against the cd, check off the versions so similar it's not worth copying, and checking the versions so hard to find you have to record. serious pain in the ass.

but if it wasn't for the computer to do that there'd be no way to keep all this music. i know if i were to move today most of my stuff would have to go, especially the tapes and lps. the great thing is i haven't even filled my 40g iPod, so i know i have plenty of space to work with. just god forbid if this data ever gets corrupted...

[RandomKoolzip]

65. Serge Gainsbourg sucks.

The hipster cult that surrounds him makes about as much sense as the one that surrounds Lee Hazlewood. Like, why spend so much energy ironically embracing such tripe when there's so much great non-kitsch music to investigate?

Oh, well....to each his own. My wife loves the froggy perv too, so maybe I'm the jerk.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

66. Correct

it's you

[RandomKoolzip]

67. Whew! Thanks.

For a minute there I was worried I had a point.

[Wat_Tyler]

70. There's no irony in my love for his music.

I geniunely believe him to be a great arranger, producer, songwriter and musician.

[RandomKoolzip]

72. Wow. Really?

I always assumed that his whole appeal was based in hipster kitsch. If he was singing in English, I thought they'd all dismiss him as a male Connie Francis.


Some things shall continue to boggle my tiny little pea-brain.

[Wat_Tyler]

73. Music is a weird, subjective form.

The French doubly so.

[RandomKoolzip]

75. Ces't la stuff.

After all, you're talking to an Everclear fan.


My wife's love for Serge is based in her francophilia.....Yeh yeh. She also loves Francoise Hardy, Jane Birkin, Gilbert Becaud, etc. I honestly can't see any non-derisive appeal in owning albums by said artists.


Subjectivity! She can't understand my love for 70's metal, so I guess we're even.