I became a fan of Serge Gainsbourg back in 1994. I tracked down a copy of the Melody Nelson album after hearing it sampled in the Beatnuts song “Superbad”. I flipped out for the Melody Nelson album right away. First thing you hear is that Beatnuts sample in the opening song, “Melody”. I’d never heard a song so funky yet so quiet. The next song, “Ballade De Melody Nelson” had a bit of the same thing going on but with the beautiful strings. I didn’t understand all the lyrics but I loved how they sounded. It was instantly my favorite duet of all time. “Ah Melody”. Dope. “L’Hôtel Particulier”. Holy shit. It sounds like a hip hop song. That one really killed me. There’s not a dud on the album. It was my new favorite. It’s still in my top 10, if not top 5.
Exactly ten years later, I met Claire at a music festival in Belfort - a small city in France near the Swiss border. A few months later, we were living together. Now I was spending most of my time with someone who - among many other interesting things - is a deep and serious Serge Gainsbourg fan. Claire educated me (in many ways) and helped me gain an appreciation of the poetry of Serge Gainsbourg. I now view Gainsbourg as one of the greatest lyricists in music history.
When Claire and I met, she didn’t speak much English but she learned very fast for my sake. As she was learning, she would periodically say something in English that was accidentally hilarious, profound or beautiful. The title of the album Secret House Against The World comes from something she said in casual conversation one day. While working on that album, Claire and I decided that it would be a fun challenge to try to write a Gainsbourg-style song in English. I had found that some of his most beautiful lyrics - especially when on the topics of love and sex - sounded weird or awkward when translated into English. We challenged ourselves to write a lusty song à la Serge that would (hopefully) sound good in English.
The song we ended up writing - “Drawing Curtains” - involves a lot of quick back-and-forth vocals between Claire and I. It made sense to us to do it that way because it’s meant to be a very intimate song. But the inspiration to structure our vocals the way we did came from a few specific places. Primarily, we drew from two Gainsbourg songs: “Ford Mustang” and especially “Comic Strip”. But I was also thinking about the quick mic passes of Run DMC and the Beastie Boys, believe it or not.
The bulk of the Secret House album was recorded with the band Tortoise in their studio (Soma Electronic Music Studios) in Chicago. What a thrill that was. “Drawing Curtains” was built in an unusual way. I had a little beat-thing I wanted to build on - drums and a loop of a weird bass/synth sound. Instrumentation was layered on top and then the original beat was removed. John McEntire played all the instruments on “Drawing Curtains”. I can’t remember what he recorded first. Drums maybe? That was fun to watch. He’s such an incredible drummer (as are all the guys in Tortoise). The bass drone might have come next. After describing what I wanted, John went to work on concocting it with patches on the studio’s famous wall of modular synths. My instruction was to create something that sounded ugly and disgusting. After John came up with something, I said, “it’s not gross enough”. So he came up with the idea of running the signal through a Leslie speaker. I would not have thought of that. Once that was set up, John had his hand on a knob on the mix board controlling the dry/wet ratio of the return from the Leslie. When John was satisfied that the sound was sufficiently yucky-sounding, I yelled “wetter!!”. I had to keep pushing him. Soon, several people in the room tried to restrain me. I kept demanding more wetness. In the end, the sound we came up with was pretty friggin’ gross but I still think it could have been grosser.
After that episode, I explained to John that I wanted the song to sound disgusting and beautiful at the same time. He said, “I have an idea!” and jumped up from his chair. He ran into another room and played the vibraphone part you hear in the song in one take. Again, my mind was blown and it was exactly what the song needed. John McEntire is probably the most brilliant and talented musician I’ve ever worked with. What an honor.
The final touch was strings played a trio or quartet (I forget which) of musicians from the Chicago Symphony! How did we pull that off?! “Drawing Curtains” is definitely one of my favorite songs on the SHAW album along with “Blood Of A Young Wolf” and “Le 65isme”. Would I make a song like “Drawing Curtains” or anything else on that album today? No. But I understand and appreciate where it all came from. I was lost and accidentally wandered into a pretty interesting place. That album didn’t go over well with… anyone, really. I remember being so taken off guard by the reaction because I thought everyone involved created something pretty special and unique. It was pretty much the first time in my career that I received bad reviews. Maybe the haters were right. Maybe the album is misunderstood. I don’t know. It’s certainly a sore thumb. I can’t deny that.
The last thing I can say about “Drawing Curtains” is that it was very fun to perform that song live with Claire. Before she met me, she had never been on stage before and the prospect terrified her. But as soon as the lights came down, something took over and she was a natural. Years after she and I broke up, we performed the song one more time in a huge arena in Paris when I was opening for Olivia Ruiz. What a night that was.
I’m very grateful to Claire for everything she taught me in our time together. She’s a very successful writer in France now - damn-near a household name! Watching her succeed from afar has made me very proud. Definitely couldn’t have made a song like “Drawing Curtains” without her and the education she gave me on the legendary Serge Gainsbourg.
Post script - When doing press for the Secret House album, I explained many times that Serge Gainsbourg was the inspiration for “Drawing Curtains”. The French press latched onto that and not long afterwards, I was invited to be part of a Serge Gainsbourg tribute album called Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited. Serge’s daughter Charlotte was involved in the project somehow, as I recall. She might have invited me to take part herself. Other contributors to the album include The Kills, Portishead, Cat Power, Sly & Robbie and a bunch of other big names. I was psyched to be included but then something went sideways and the song I recorded was cut. I also remember being offered a tour of Serge Gainsbourg’s house by Charlotte but that didn’t happen either. That would have been cool.
