The Ballad of Charlotte Gainsbourg, 5:55

Instead of sounding menacing and sexy (as Cocker would sound), Charlotte makes the words innocent and girlish. In “AF607105,” Charlotte is alone aboard an overnight flight filled with strangers. “Fly over your lifetime, and never touching down/My heart is breaking, somewhere over Saskatchewan” … “Invent a new persona, drunk here on the edge of space … The cabin is burning, I smile and feel complete/Here amongst total strangers, 27,000 feet.”

Other lyrics that give us a small glimpse into Charlotte’s psyche and insecurities include: “Our love goes under the knife, someone got too close/Our love goes under the knife, the heart was rejected by the host” (“The Operation”); “And these songs that you sing, do they mean anything, to the people you’re singing them to? People like you” … “I read a magazine, that said by seventeen, your life was at an end, I’m dead and I’m perfectly content” (“The Songs That We Sing”); “I stick to the script and I go with the plan, and frankly my dear I never gave a damn … I can act like I’m dumb, I can act like I’m clever, you thought that was me? Oh well, I never” … “So just what is real and just what is fake? Well in life you never get to do a second take” (“Jamais”).

When the album was released in Europe at the end of August 2006, it went immediately to number one in France and has sold over 50,000 copies there. Future projects coming up for the unassuming chanteuse, (aside from trying to live under the radar in Paris with her husband, actor/director Yvan Attal, and their two children) include Emanuele Crialese’s film Nuovomondo (The Golden Door), Todd Haynes’ Bob Dylan biopic, I’m Not There, and James Ivory’s The City of Your Final Destination. It appears the junior Gainsbourg has grown up, and freed herself from the shadow of her father.

5:55 was released in North America on April 24, 2007. For more information about Charlotte Gainsbourgh, check out her Web site.

Photo courtesy of Charlotte Gainsburg