Back all week on the career of Jane Birkin, who left us this Sunday, July 16, 2023. Elodie Suigo had met the singer and actress in the summer of 2021. In this fourth episode, Jane Birkin returns to the song “Ex fan des sixties”.
She was the favorite Englishwoman of the French: Jane Birkin died at the age of 76, Sunday July 16 in Paris, after leaving her mark on song and cinema.
In a series of interviews on franceinfo, with Élodie Suigo in the World of Élodie broadcast, in July 2021, this Londoner of origin, naturalized French, whose name is inseparable from that of Serge Gainsbourg, had returned to the highlights of her life with five memorable songs. Today, back to Ex fan of the sixties.
>> Find the full interview with Jane Birkin on franceinfo
franceinfo: At first, you had a lot of trouble singing Ex fan of the sixtiesin 1978.
Jane Birkin: During the recording, Serge was odious because he didn’t understand how I could be so bad, when I was capable, according to him, of singing very high, of performing feats, of complicated things.
It was awful because I didn’t understand it was: “‘Boom’ ex sixties fan“, I would start right away on time and Serge would say: ‘No, ‘Boom’ ex-sixties fan”. They yelled at me, they tried to find other tricks to get me started at the right time. He didn’t understand that I didn’t have any grain of rhythm in me.
How was it that I was unable to understand that there was”‘Boom’ ex sixties fan“? Finally, we stopped arguing that I was having a fix. We spent a summer in Cresseveuille and that summer, T. Rex and Elvis died. Normally, the song ended with “And the poor Janis Joplin“and I added”Janis Joplin, T. Rex, Elvis“. And there, when I sang it, I had no more problem. It was indeed a fixation.