Music

Oh! Pardon tu dormais -


Reviews (2)


Pitchfork

d. 17. Feb. 2021

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By

Ben Cardew

d. 17. Feb. 2021

"An emotional tour de force from an artist who has never gotten her musical due outside of France ... Birkin's name will forever be linked to the songs [Serge] Gainsbourg composed for her (...), leaving her better known as an interpreter than a songwriter in her own right. But the lyrics on a song like "Cigarettes," which addresses her daughter's death to the tune of a haunting cabaret waltz, are both raw and poetic ... Birkin's voice, too, is in immaculate form (...); her performance here is understated and full of character, emotion pooling in every carefully enunciated syllable ... Like Bob Dylan's late-period masterpiece "Rough and Rowdy Ways" or Marianne Faithfull's devastating 2018 album "Negative Capability", "Oh! Pardon tu dormais..." is weary but never resigned, battle-scarred but never defeated, a work of personal reckoning marked by a frantic desire to connect, as our time slips away. None of us can cheat death; but to face it with Birkin's fortitude and poetic skill is to score a minor victory".


Mojo

2021 January

By

By

David Hutcheon

2021 January

"Career peak for a woman forever unfairly standing in the shadows of the men she inspired ... If there are reminders of "Histoire De Melody Nelson" or "L'Homme À Tête De Chou" here, it's because they have been our experience of her life ... Arguably, though, Serge [Gainsbourg] barely exists on "Oh! Pardon...", with Birkin writing in French and English, allowing the listener to decide to whom she's singing ... She has made the album of her life".