Melody Nelson
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Melody Nelson is the fictional subject of a concept album, Histoire de Melody Nelson, by French musician Serge Gainsbourg.
Similar in concept to, if not based on, the infamous Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita, the plot of the album concerns the protagonist's brief (and disturbing) relationship with a teenage English girl named Melody Nelson, who he meets when his Rolls-Royce collides with her bicycle. They begin a passionate but short love affair, which ends when Melody dies in a plane crash.
[edit] References
- "Melody" is the default author name and "Nelson" is the default password in Six Apart's Movable Type weblog software (which had the working title of "Serge", after Gainsbourg).
- British rock band Placebo recorded a cover version of Gainsbourg's "The Ballad Of Melody Nelson", which was released on a compilation of cover versions with their Sleeping with Ghosts album.
- On October 21st, 2006, Vannier conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra, Crouch End Festival Chorus, a children’s string quintet plus the inimitable musicians Dougie Wright, Big Jim Sullivan, Herbie Flowers and Vic Flick from the original recordings in the Barbican Centre Theatre, London. Brigitte Fontaine, Laetitita Sedier from Stereolab, Jarvis Cocker, Badly Drawn Boy, The Bad Seeds’ Mick Harvey and The Super Furries’ Gruff Rhys take it in turns to sing for the performance of L’Histoire De Melody Nelson’.
