The Operation

Album: 5.55 (2006)
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Songfacts®:

  • In this song, former Pulp lead singer Jarvis Cocker's lyrics compare obsessive love to an operation. The subject matter was uncannily echoed the following year when Gainsbourg had to have surgery following a brain hemorrhage.
  • Gainsbourg likes to sing behind a sheet in the studio. She explained why to The Mail on Sunday June 13, 2010: "My greatest struggle has been finding confidence as a singer. Though I've made three albums, I never think of myself as a singer. Stepping up to a microphone has always been traumatic for me, because I've felt like I was standing in the shadow of my father's greatness. When I was making the 5.55 album with Jarvis Cocker in 2006, he could see how intimidated I was in the studio. He'd been the same when he started out, and explained that he used to hide his face behind a cloth when he sang in the studio. That gave me the idea of singing behind a sheet. It was liberating to isolate myself in that way."

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