My French part of me is quite proud because there are very few musical icons in France, as most of French musicians have never crossed the frontier. Where are the French Elvis, the French Lennon? Johnny Hallyday? Eddie Mitchell? Give me a break, these old guys even took an Americanized name to look cooler, and I can’t even name a young French star à la Justin Bieber or Britney Spears. Okay, these days we have Daft Punk, M83, David Guetta (noooo!) and Phoenix, but how long will they last? No, they are certainly no icons to me.
However, two decades ago, France had troublemaker, provocative, satirist, joker, and scandalous Serge Gainsbourg. But you can’t say you have reached a certain level of icon-ness before something nasty, some body part, some gross item about you is sold for lots of money, right? Remember about John Lennon’s tooth? Lady Gaga’s fake fingernails, Britney Spears’ chewed gum, Elvis Presley’s hair and dirty underwear? All sold for crazy amounts of money, and determinant of an iconic status without any doubt!
I am happy to report that Serge Gainsbourg is right there now, as a French auction house is offering a few artefacts of the late great Gainsbarre, such as 4 cigarette butts from Gitanes smoked by Gainsbourg collected in an audio cassette case (nice!) coming with a box of matches, as well as a nail clipper which belonged to him, and this sounds a bit weird and random. The guide prices are respectively €500-€700, and €50-€80 so this is totally reasonable but who knows how much they will really be sold?
A spokesman for the Talma auction house, David Richard, explained it was hard to put a price on some of the items:
‘Gainsbourg was very controversial during his life and the myth has continued since his death. When we sold his shopping lists last year we realized there was a great interest in items from his everyday life.’
‘Quite a lot of the bidders were women and they were prepared to go quite far but it’s always difficult to know how much people are prepared to pay for these things.’
Indeed, how much did this dentist pay for Lennon’s molar already? $31,000 right? This will probably not be the case here, but still! Plus there are other nicer items such as photographs, books and even a telegram to his wife, Jane Birkin, with whom he recorded his all-time hit, ‘Je t’aime … moi non plus’. There is also a pair of battered grey shoes, one of the last pair worn by the singer songwriter. All this is always weird but at least none of these items can lead to one of these crazy cloning projects.
