Brigitte Bardot’s most famous musical endeavor, and one of the songs for which her collaborator Serge Gainsbourg is most famous, 1968’s “Bonnie and Clyde” is one of the pinnacles of ‘60s French pop, as important to the Parisian pop scene (where its romanticized view of the real-life ‘30s gangsters Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow was part and parcel of the same worldview that encompassed everything from nouvelle vague films such as Breathless to anarcho-pranksters the Situationist International) as “Hey Jude” was in England or John Wesley Harding was in the states. Unlike most French singles of its era – including Gainsbourg’s other tracks with Bardot – “Bonnie and Clyde” has not dated at all in the intervening decades, most likely because few other songs have ever sounded like this: the arrangement is built on a circular violin riff that’s so unvarying that it may well be a tape loop, augmented by an utterly bizarre vocal hook that appears, unchanging, approximately every eighth bar: an odd strangled yelp somewhere between a hiccup and a baby’s burble. Over these, as a well as a full orchestra and an oddly prominent (for the time period) drum kit, Bardot and Gainsbourg trade lines in hushed near-whispers, joining together only for the title refrain. A strange but immediately appealing song, “Bonnie and Clyde” has remained a hipster classic that regularly gets revived by the likes of Steve Wynn and Johnette Napolitano (on Wynn’s Dazzling Display) and Dean Wareham and Laetitia Sadier (on Luna’s Penthouse).
- See more What others are saying 'Icon Inspiration: the legendary love between Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg.' 'Sergei Gainsbourg popular French singer (thank Bridget Bardot, Bonnie & Clyde) & Jane Birkin actress. Named a handbag after her.'
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Appears On
| Year | Artist/Album | Label | Time | AllMusic Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 | Serge Gainsbourg / Brigitte Bardot | Universal Distribution / Mercury | 4:19 | |
| 1968 | PolyGram | 4:18 | ||
| 1995 | Polygram | 4:16 | ||
| 1996 | Polydor | 4:12 | ||
| 1997 | Mercury / Polydor | 4:12 | ||
| 1998 | Polydor | 4:15 | ||
| 1999 | Mercury | 4:15 | ||
| 2000 | Universal Distribution / Polygram | 4:14 | ||
| 2000 | Mediane Multimedia Entertainment / Mediane | 4:15 | ||
| 2001 | Universal Distribution | 4:15 | ||
| 2002 | Various Artists | Repertoire | 4:15 | |
| 2002 | Universal International | 4:16 | ||
| 2003 | Various Artists | Planet Rhythm / Universal Music Latino | 4:16 | |
| 2003 | Universal / Universal International | 4:17 | ||
| 2005 | Mercury | |||
| 2005 | DRG | 4:16 | ||
| 2005 | Various Artists | Filter Music | 7:21 | |
| 2005 | Universal International | |||
| 2006 | Verve / Verve Forecast | 4:15 | ||
| 2006 | Universal Distribution | 4:17 | ||
| 2007 | Universal Distribution | 4:15 | ||
| 2007 | Def Jam / Island / Spectra / Universal / Universal Music | 4:13 | ||
| 2007 | Def Jam / Island / Universal / Universal Distribution / Universal Music | 4:13 | ||
| 2013 | UMSM / Universal Music | 4:14 | ||
| 2014 | Universal | 4:17 | ||
| 2016 | Mercury / Universal / Wrasse | 4:13 | ||
| 2017 | Mercury / Universal | 4:16 | ||
| DEP / Mercury / Universal | 3:09 | |||
Various Artists | Hip-O / Universal | 4:16 | ||
| Universal | 4:13 | |||
| Verve | 4:15 | |||
| Mercury | 4:16 | |||
| Universal | 4:18 |
Serge Gainsbourg Bonnie And Clyde
This is indeed a compilation: Only two tracks are new, from the the Bonnie and Clyde EP: the impossibly beautiful gangster ballad of 'Bonnie and Clyde' (Gainsbourg's love declaration for Bardot), and the cartoonish frenzy of 'Comic Strip'. The rest is culled from several releases, some dating back all the way back to 1960.