The Brigitte Bardot singer was nothing less than the actress
You say Brigitte Bardot and your mind immediately races towards the cinema: the wind in the hair of “Et Dieu… créa la femme” Of Roger Vaidm (in Italy it arrived with the title of “Piace atutti”, in 1956), sensual freedom, the irruption of a new femininity that between the end of 1950s they 1960s it changed forever the way of being on the screen. Yet, reducing Bardot, passed away today at the age of 91to the sole dimension of actress and sex symbol it means to lose an essential chapter of his expressiveness: the musical one. That of Brigitte Bardot singer it was a career briefyes, but surprisingly dense, coherent and influentialThat he didn’t live in the shadow of cinema. And what he gave topop icon great satisfactions. Included a meeting with the legend Serge Gainsbourg.
A fragile voice
It is good to specify that Brigitte Bardot was never a real singerin the classic sense of the term: he had not studied singing And he didn’t have a singing technique. The one that among 60s and 70s found himself recording a series of 45 rpm and even some 33 laps it was one fragile voicealmost spoken at times imperfect. And that’s where he resided its charm. As happened on the screen, Bardot he didn’t play a role: he immersed himself in it. In song, as in cinema, its strength lay in its immediacyin one naturalness that transformed weakness in style. Not being able to try their hand at virtuosity of a true singerhe tried to convey with his voice an emotional truth that it arrived direct, without filters. All in all, he was ahead: in an era still dominated by powerful voices and sumptuous orchestrationsBardot anticipated an idea of intimate popAlmost confidentialwhich will only find full development decades later.
The decisive meeting with Serge Gainsbourg
We quoted him: the pinnacle of Brigitte Bardot’s musical career is perhaps represented by the very fortunate meeting with Serge Gainsbourgone of the most authors refined and provocative of the French chanson. Gainsbourg immediately understood what many had not yet grasped: Bardot he shouldn’t have “singed better”where you go sing like Brigitte Bardot. And so he began to write for her tailor-made songswhere the voice becomes instrument of melancholic seduction, irony and languor. The result was a series of songs that marked an era. “Bonnie and Clyde”for example, a suspended, sensual, narrative musical dialoguein which Bardot it never dominates the scenebut lights it up with a disarming grace. Even bolder is “Je t’aime… moi non plus”registered but initially censoredwhich remains one of the most controversial and whispered declarations of love in the history of popular music. Gainsbourg originally engraved it inautumn of 1967 right along with Brigitte Bardot. The song was supposed to be part of the album “Bonnie and Clyde”on which the singer-songwriter was working together with the actress. The two were linked by an intense, secret and passionate relationship. But Bardot, at the time, was married to the Swiss photographer Gunter Sachs and feared the release of a song like “Je t’aime… moi non plus”, which it was to all intents and purposes an act of love recorded on tapewithout ambiguity, could arouse scandal. When she listened to the recording, the actress asked Gainsbourg not to publish it. The latter accepted: he put the tape back in a drawer and re-recorded “Je t’aime… moi non plus” together with Jane Birkin. The original version in duet with Brigitte Bardot It only came out in 1986.
A repertoire that tells about a woman, not a character
Right in the duet with Gainsbourg in “Je t’aime… moi non plus” he is the secret of the importance of Brigitte Bardot’s musical career. What makes Bardot’s musical history not inferior to the cinematographic one And expressive coherence. His songs I’m not a star whimbut the natural extension of his public and private personality. It emerges in the texts and interpretations the same tension between freedom and melancholyBetween desire for escape and vulnerability which characterizes his roles on the big screen and his life. Songs like “Harley Davidson” or “La Madrague” they don’t work because “Bardot sings them”, but because only Bardot could sing them like that. In “La Madrague”, in particular, the music becomes almost a confession: a hymn to chosen solitudeal withdrawal from the worldwhich he seems to anticipate his future abandonment of the stage.
An album, a style statement
The pinnacle of this musical adventure is found in the album “Show”dated 1968of which a sort of artistic poster. The record was there soundtrack to a television special produced by the same Brigitte Bardot. In fifteen tracks that compose it, the actress ranges between styles and genres: come on dance al psychedelic poppassing through the singer-songwriter (He’s in the control room once again Gainsbourg). Many of the songs on the album were accompanied by related video clips: a practice — we are in the 1968 — which he seems to anticipate the culture of music videoswhich will raid the 80s.
Because Bardot the singer matters as much as the actress
Say that the musical career of Brigitte Bardot “it’s no different” of the cinematographic one it does not mean comparing its duration or commercial success. It means recognizing it the cultural impact. As an actress, Bardot has reinvented the image of women on the screen; as a singer, he anticipated a new way of inhabiting pop songs: more fragilemore sensualmore True. And in the end, if you think about it, the two careers have composed a single, great artistic trajectorydeclined in different languages. Cinema made her immortal. Music brought her intimately close to us.
