Back in 1996, David Holmes took a minidisc player around NYC and recorded conversations with locals and some random street sounds. He took it back to Ireland with him and fashioned one of his soundtracks-to-unmade-movies, Let’s Get Killed. It’s a fusion of techno, jazz and ambient of the kind that you’ve probably heard a million times since the crossover of “trip-hop,” but it’s a notable entry into the genre.

At the end of the CD is a track called “Don’t Die Just Yet” and it’s always been my person stand-out from the album. It has a loose, funky street groove to it and it captures the overall mood of the album—walking the streets of a big, dirty city at night.

The title, though, evokes something slightly different. It sounds sad, almost mournful in its anticipation of someone’s mortality. My brother took the title and used it in a literal sense for one of his novels, referring to the untimely demise of loved one. For me, it gives the song an edge that I don’t think it would have had otherwise. I now picture the unmade film’s protagonist, walking the streets as before, yet with sadness in his heart as he contemplates a loss that has not yet occurred. The swelling strings, so often used to cheesy effect in old disco songs, now begin to sound sad and plaintive.

With this in mind, it was interesting to discover that it’s actually a cover of Serge Gainsbourg’s “En Melody” from his porno-fantasia album Le Histoire de Melody Nelson. And it’s a shock to hear it for the first time three decades after its release.

Gainsbourg still has a reputation as being little more than a dirty old man and his more ill-advised public actions (especially in later life) did little to alter the perception. This description doesn’t do justice to the man’s music, but it’s pretty hard to dispute when you hear his then-partner Jane Birkin’s orgasmic laughter midway through “En Melody”. This music is awesome, but it’s so damn sleazy.

Sound-wise, the two tracks are quite similar. They are both instrumental and use similar components and arrangements. They have a similar aesthetic. And yet when I first heard “En Melody”, I wondered whether “Don’t Die Just Yet” was even the same song.

I guess it shows the power that personality can wield over even a non-vocal track. And the difference that a name can make.

[buy music here and here]