Jane Birkin Launches Serge Gainsbourg + Jane Tour

Well, when it was going to be conventional , i too wondered why I was singing Serge again, even if it was celebrating the 20 years after Serge’s death, even if it was a very personal 40 years since "Melody Nelson" but what did I have to offer … I’d done it all before, Serge in pop, arabesque, classic quator, 14 musicians, 6 musicians, a harp, a squeeze box, violins … this year others have started, their "Serge" was a new point of view, their interpretations… so I started contemplating, putting it all off …

Then there was the Japanese disaster … of unbelievable horror, earthquake, tsunami, and then the ghastly news of the nuclear horror, the like of which we had never witnessed …  the images …the gigantic waves pounding down, the cars trying to escape, the people running, the dignified faces of poor parents looking for their children, the numbers of dead and missing mounting, the terrifying views, over and over, the great wave, the fuming nuclear centers … what to do ? I have known these people for forty years… "go there" I thought… tell them that back home folk are thinking of them, but get there, "and do what ?"  what can I do ?….the only thing i can do… a concert …

So this is the immediate result of that concert, Sachiko had fixed up the best Japanese group of musicians in four days! "I’m coming to Tokyo" we were Friday, by Monday I was there…

When Gluzman asked if i wanted to do the concerts for Serge in America … i said "Yes, BUT with these Japanese musicians.
I had found my reason …

Here we come… Serge Gainsbourg and Jane via Japan"