Gene Vincent

Friday, February 11, 2022

Gene Vincent was reading a book, “Monsieur Venus” by Rachilde, which deals with gender issues and reverses the role of a female and a male.   He thought the book's theme was crazy, but at least it kept him from thinking about his left leg, which was hurting like crazy.   He didn’t like to read a lot, but he had a thing for decadent French literature.   He read somewhere that Rachilde was known as ‘Mademoiselle Baudelaire,’ which was an excellent reason to pick up this novel.

Gene likes to lose it like to be gone, gone, and reading the Decadents took him to a place where he could escape his surroundings and body.  The death of his close friend Eddie Cochran was very much closure of life.  When Gene went off that road in England, he was in the car with Eddie.

He couldn’t remember the details, but being a musician, he was more aware of the sounds of the crash and the series of what it seems as endless British accents trying to talk to him.  But without a doubt, his friend’s death closed one world, and there was just an entrance in front of him, and indeed it wasn’t the gates of heaven.

Reading and performing on a stage are the only two positions that make him feel alive.  Drinking deadens his motor skills, but it is very much a spiritual or metaphysical series of moments when he can soar.  He couldn’t speak French, but the French surely loved him.  He spent a lot of time there and was introduced to French literature by fellow rocker Vince Taylor.

The inspiration for one of his biggest hits, “Be-Bop-A-Lula,” came from the comic strip “Little Lulu.” As a child in Norfork, Virginia, Vincent loved a neighbor who looked precisely like Little Lulu.   She had a headful of ringlets and always wore a pretty red coat.   She was poor, so Gene was convinced that she had nothing on under her jacket, and therefore whenever Gene felt a chill, he thought of his neighbor.

“Be-Bop-A-Lula” is a prayer for the ideal essence of life where Lulu is both an angel and an agent for Satan.  The way things are turning out for Gene Vincent is the latter.  Many years later, I ended up at Rockaway Records on Glendale Boulevard, and in their used record bins, I found five re-issued Capital Records albums by Gene Vincent, all for $6.99.  I purchased them all, and now in my household, I have a shrine to Gene surrounded by an ink portrait of Rachilde and an old “Little Lulu” comic.