Lovely lineage

Photo courtesy of some guy's Wordpress site. I'll assume he swiped it from someone.

I know I’m late to the party with this whole Charlotte Gainsbourg thing. For years the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin has been floating in my periphery; but I guess I got confused as to whether she was an actress or a musician or a starlet more famous for being famous than anything else.

Never mind that I’ve actually seen her in half a dozen movies and, though her performances were staggering, for some reason I never got around to IMDB her. No, I didn’t see Antichrist. I’ll get on it. Gad, stop looking at me like that!

Call me a dolt, but there is so much talentless progeny of creative icons out there; I get confused and throw up shields impervious to any sort of cultural osmosis whenever I hear a famous last name attached to a new first name. In this instance, I’m a total idiot. I admit it. I’m trying to change.

I first (knowingly) heard Gainsbourg on KCRW a couple of weeks ago. I had no idea who was on, but I loved the song enough to whip out my iPhone and Shazam it–because I had to know who it was AT THAT VERY SECOND.

Then, this week I read a recent New York Times article on her new Beck-produced CD, “IRM.” My favorite part of the article (I’m not missing the point, I swear.) is her mother’s quote: “She is she, not Serge, not me. But, sweetly she has our voices in her head.” It’s like a tiny poem that needs not one more sentence to complete it. It’s also a two-sentence parenting philosophy–just tape it above your kid’s bed and think about it every day. That’s all you’ll ever need to have a perfectly well-adjusted kid, right?

Anyway, since you probably missed her David Letterman appearance on Friday (and her drummer in a wolf man mask!), opting instead to watch Conan O’Brien’s swan song, give the kid a moment of your time and watch her charmingly shy, inherently cool performance–and watch Beck back her up on guitar and vocals–at the KCRW studio. You won’t regret it. Promise. They even do a little bit of insightful chit-chat at the end.