He’d actually written the song for Gréco after spending a night drinking champagne in her house on Rue de Verneuil in Paris’ Left Bank. Serge recorded his version around the same time, though Gréco’s was more popular at the time naturellement. Buoyed by his big break, he disappeared into obscurity again, only reappearing to furnish songs to those with seemingly more pizazz.Ī lilting, jazzy waltz with a cunning key change, the song about a now forgotten dance craze was first written for the existentialist’s chanteuse of choice, Juliette Gréco. Despite its sombre subject matter, it’s a rousing, galloping, amusing tale of ennui, and it must have marked Gainsbourg out as ‘one to watch’, even if at that point he looked distinctly uncomfortable on stage. The protagonist punches holes throughout the song and finally begins to fantasise about piercing a giant hole in his own head. The metro billets were known as lilacs at the time because of their colour, though there’s a commune outside Paris called Les Lilas too - an indication that this Gainsbourg chap might be disposed to cunning jeu de mots. Arriving like a singing Sartre (or maybe more like a chanting Camus) with his first chanson ‘Le poinçonneur des Lilas’ in 1958, Gainsbourg explored the Sisyphean misery of working for the man - in this case as a train conductor punching holes in tickets all day.
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