L'Homme à tête de chou

L’Homme à tête de chou is a concept album by Serge Gainsbourg issued in 1976 on Philips. L'Homme à tête de chou (1976) is a concept album by Serge Gainsbourg. Like its predecessors Histoire de Melody Nelson (1971), Vu de l'extérieur (1973) and Rock Around the Bunker (1975), the album received little attention when it was first issued. "L’Homme à tête de chou" tells the story of a man in his forties falling in love with a rather free-minded shampoo girl. After the narrator meets the young girl at the barber shop where she works ("Chez Max coiffeur pour hommes"), we learn about their feelings for each other ("Ma Lou Marilou"), their erotic games ("Variations sur Marilou"), and ultimately about Marilou's murder by the narrator, turned jealous lover ("Meurtre à l’extincteur", "Marilou sous la neige"), and finally his decline into madness ("Lunatic Asylum"). Despite the fact that some songs, such as "L'Homme à tête de chou" and "Marilou Reggae", have been well received, "Marilou sous la neige" and the 8-minute epic "Variations sur Marilou" were both commercial failures at the time of their release, and waited several years before being found by a younger audience and recognized as masterpieces of French music. "Ma Lou Marilou" is inspired by a section of the first movement of Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57, known as the "Appassionata" composed by Ludwig van Beethoven. The album took its title from a sculpture by Claude Lalanne, wife of François-Xavier Lalanne bought by Gainsbourg.