A Quote by Kemp Muhl

Everyone has this idea of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin: the woman being pretty and prancing around while the guy writes all the songs. — © Kemp Muhl
Everyone has this idea of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin: the woman being pretty and prancing around while the guy writes all the songs.
With Jane Birkin, we had a scene from a film called Jane B. by Agnès V. - a portrait I made in '87. We had a casino scene, surrealistic, in which we had some naked people gambling. Jane Birkin was the card dealer and I was the player. I had beautiful jewelery around me, and when I lost I would take the jewelery and say, Service - being very generous, because it was very expensive jewelery. I would say, Tip.
I'm not the kind of guy who sits around at home and writes songs. Once in a while I'll pick up a guitar and noodle around, but it's rare.
When you think about Balenciaga muse and model Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon - I mean, you look at their mother Jane Birkin, and what they have grown up to be . . . They aren't invaded in fashion, and yet they love it.I mean, who is going to schlep these big skirts and trains and all these things? How wonderful it is to see the young in miniskirts!
There is a song of Gainsbourg that Jane Birkin sang, and the words are beautiful in French. It says, "Le jeu et les moi." It's impossible to translate, because it has a very nice sound. It sounds so lovely in French. So I took that because it was the subject: I and myself and myself and I. Which is, in a way, boring, because it is a contradiction.
When a guy writes a scene where a woman does a deviant sex act on camera, it's objectifying. But when a woman writes it, it's feminism.
I painted with my husband a portrait of a naked Serge Gainsbourg draped with a French flag, and it hangs in our bedroom. I love gritty and dark art like what the German couple Herakut does.
The problem with a beautiful woman is that she makes everyone around her feel hopelessly masculine, which if you’re already male to begin with poses no particular problem. But if you’re anyone else, your whole sexual identity gets dragged into the principal’s office: “So what’s this I hear about you prancing around, masquerading as a woman?” You are answerless. You are sitting on your hands. You are praying for your breasts to grow, your hair to perk up.
I'm sick of being known as the sexy guy that writes great songs.
If you're a kid at a secondary comprehensive in North London as I was in the seventies, prancing around doing acting and being a luvvie wasn't really a good idea for your personal security.
My dad and Jane Birkin; they are both effortlessly stylish.
For a long time everyone had a stereotype of ballet that it was easy and that we were just prancing around. But thanks to the Internet, and being able to share live performances and broadcast them to the world so that everyone can experience the ballet, I think it's inspiring people we wouldn't normally be able to reach.
Most people know Serge Gainsbourg's 'Histoire de Melody Nelson' album, but what's interesting is that in the early '90s, he actually went into a dark, weird phase that French people don't really like. They consider his music from that time weak. But for me, it's the best.
I always loved the style of Jean Seberg, Jane Birkin and Marilyn Monroe.
[Raymond Roussel] said that after his first book he expected that the next morning there would be a kind of aura around his person and that everyone in the street would be able to see that he had written a book. This is the obscure desire harboured by everyone who writes. It is true that the first text one writes is neither written for others, nor because one is what one is: one writes to become other than what one is. One tries to modify one's way of being through the act of writing.
I'm not somebody who carries around a notepad and writes songs all day long. I don't imagine everything I think of is worth being in a song. So I tend to collect notes, and I set time aside to go to work and write songs.
I kind of, I have quite a clear idea of what I'm trying to do with a record. A Super Furry Animals record is always an adventure, because there's five members of the group and everyone is a producer, we all throw in ideas, and regardless of who writes the song, the songs always get pushed around and shape-shifted to fit everyone in the band. So when I start a record with Super Furry Animals I can never predict how it'll turn out.
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