Wandering Through A Dead Man's House
Maison Gainsbourg feels like he’s just stepped out
I always forget how much I love Serge Gainsbourg. After all, I’m not obsessed with him. Is it even okay these days to love an artist without harboring a fervent obsession? Fandom feels more fiercely urgent, parasocial, and obsessive than ever. As someone whose mind goes blank when put on the spot, I’m a Stan-Culture reject. According to the internet, if you don’t know the artist’s shoe size or foundation tint, do you even like their music?! If I can’t stand anything after Vu de l'extérieur does that make me a poser? I’m sure I already have true Serge Stans sneering, but let’s make it worse.
My introduction to Serge Gainsbourg was dutiful. Learning French, my teachers always encouraged the class to listen to French music. I filled my queue with songs I couldn’t understand by Vanessa Paradis, Yelle, and La Femme, but my tastes inevitably skewed towards the 60s. Even now, I struggle to come up with cool contemporary French musicians I genuinely listen to when asked. But Françoise Hardy, Sylvie Vartan, Jacques Dutronc, France Gall, and Serge Gainsbourg? Oui. As my vocabulary improved and his lyrics became clearer, Gainsbourg quickly became the front-runner. His irony and wit appealed to me as much as the melodies and I quickly slotted him into my playlists alongside Father John Misty. When tickets were finally available to visit Maison Gainsbourg after the initial surge, I jumped at the chance.
It’s truly impossible to miss Maison Gainsbourg. It’s the only building on the incredibly staid block with even a whiff of cool. Even before Gainsbourg’s home became a museum, the exterior wall was plastered with wheat paste collages and scribbled with lyrics and affectionate messages. Luckily, it still is. Opened to the public in September 2023, Maison Gainsbourg offers an intimate view of the musician’s life. Splitting the experience into two parts, visitors can begin with an exploration of Serge Gainsbourg’s home at 5 bis rue de Verneuil (left mostly untouched since his death in 1991), followed by the museum across the street displaying a chronological look at both his life and illustrious—and at times contentious—career.
In an interview with France Inter in 2023, Charlotte Gainsbourg discussed opening her father’s house to the public. “There was a lot of apprehension, a lot of sadness, I wondered if I should postpone the opening... It's loaded with so many mixed feelings!” Gainsbourg said.
Entering the space, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s hesitation is clear. The house is frozen in time, preserved as it was left upon its owner’s death thirty years prior. The only sense that the space transformed into a museum is the glass barrier erected on either side of the living room to stop visitors from sitting down at the piano bench or tossing themselves down on the couch to examine Serge’s discarded Gitanes. Timed so that there are only two people in each area of the house at once, it’s hard not to feel like a voyeur trespassing in someone’s house.
Did Charlotte Gainsbourg set out to create a haunted house? Maybe. Aided by her intimate audio guide, the experience feels eerie. Charlotte’s voice in your ear, the house feels alive with ghosts of the past. As she guides you through the house with a soft voice, tingles raced down my spine. Narrating her memory of her father walking barefoot through the house to compose in the middle of the night, Charlotte’s voice is overlaid with the sound of footsteps crossing the marble-tiled living room and the haunting sound of piano. Occasionally we get Serge himself humming a tune or speaking, like he’s just in the next room.
Wallpapered with black fabric, the house feels dark yet intimate. The living room, scattered with personal effects, feels like the owner has just stepped out. Following the end of his relationship with Jane Birkin, the house became a veritable cabinet of curiosities. Sculptures depicting medical anatomy mingle alongside Second Empire antiques, newspaper clippings, family photos, and gold records. Down the hall, you can peep the kitchen, still stocked with condiments and the bottles of wine he kept for sentimental reasons. Upstairs, even his closet is laid bare: a surprisingly sparse uniform of blue jeans, denim shirts, a few worn blazers, and white leather Repettos. Scrutinizing the contents of someone’s bathroom while hearing their daughter dish about their showering preferences feels almost too voyeuristic. Objects and spaces hold meaning, but where’s the line?
In contrast with the quiet intimacy of the house, the museum is more traditional and, well, packed. It’s immediately less enjoyable simply for the fact that you’ll need to jockey around other people all trying to read the same wall texts. Moving chronologically, the museum documents Serge Gainsbourg’s—née Lucien Ginsberg—family life and upbringing, his interest in visual art, and eventual shift into playing music professionally. Gainsbourg’s story is yet another reminder that building a creative career takes time: his major commercial successes came in his 30s and 40s.
Looking at the arc of his career, his penchant for the sexual innuendo in his lyrics is overt. It’s no surprise for the 1960s. The double entendre in “Les Sucettes,” penned in 1967 for France Gall quickly escalated to the 1969 rerecording of “Je t’aime moi non plus” with Jane Birkin, featuring breathy vocals that prompted Italian radio to ban the song citing obscenity after the Vatican condemned its content. That’s all well and good— until we hit his dalliances with underage girls at the end of his life. Until we hit “Lemon Incest,” sung with his preteen daughter. Until it becomes necessary to apply a bit of cognitive dissonance: this is music I love; this is a person I would call incredibly creepy. Where does that leave us? I’m truly not sure.
Maison Gainsbourg is beautifully preserved and laid out with intention. The space even offers a chic piano bar—called Le Gainsbarre after Gainsbourg’s carousing alter ego—with maybe the best bloody mary I’ve had in Paris. However, only a year after opening its doors to the public, Maison Gainsbourg was placed under redressement judiciaire September 18th 2024. The problem? The institution’s mounting debts—a reported 1.65 million euros in addition to the initial 3 million euro loan. Considering that the museum has been booked solid since opening, the institution’s financial situation comes as a shock. For now, Maison Gainsbourg remains open to the public.
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