| "Je t'aime… moi non plus" | |
|---|---|
| Single by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin |
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| from the album Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg |
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| Released | 1969 |
| Format | 7" single |
| Recorded | 1969 |
| Genre | Pop, adult contemporary |
| Length | 4:22[1] |
| Label | UK: Fontana, Major Minor, Antic US: Fontana |
| Writer(s) | Serge Gainsbourg |
| Producer | Jack Baverstock |
| "Je t'aime… moi non plus" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Donna Summer | ||||
| from the album Thank God It's Friday | ||||
| B-side | Je t'aime… moi non plus (Part Two) | |||
| Released | 1978 | |||
| Format | 7" single, 12" single | |||
| Genre | Disco, pop, soul, R&B | |||
| Label | Casablanca | |||
| Writer(s) | Serge Gainsbourg | |||
| Producer | Giorgio Moroder, Pete Bellotte | |||
| Donna Summer singles chronology | ||||
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"Je t'aime… moi non plus" (French for "I love you… nor do I") is a French duet written by Serge Gainsbourg. It was written for and sung with Brigitte Bardot in 1967, but that version was not released until 1986. In 1969, Gainsbourg recorded a version with his lover, Jane Birkin. It reached number one in the UK, but was banned in several countries due to its sexual content. The song has been covered by many different artists.
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The song was written for and recorded with Gainsbourg's girlfriend, Brigitte Bardot, in winter 1967. Bardot asked him to write the most beautiful love song he could imagine and that night he wrote "Je t'aime" and "Bonnie and Clyde".[2] They recorded an arrangement of "Je t'aime" by Michel Colombier at a Paris studio in a two-hour session in a small glass booth; the engineer William Flageollet said there was "heavy petting".[3] However, news of the recording reached the press and Bardot's husband, German businessman Gunter Sachs, was angry and called for the single to be withdrawn. Bardot pleaded with Gainsbourg not to release it, and although he protested that "The music is very pure. For the first time in my life, I write a love song and it's taken badly",[3] he complied.[4][5]:92
In 1968, Gainsbourg fell in love with English actress Jane Birkin on the set of their film Slogan. After filming, he asked her to record the song with him.[3] Birkin had heard the Bardot version and thought it "so hot."[6] She said: "I only sang it because I didn't want anybody else to sing it," jealous at the thought of his sharing a recording studio with someone else. Gainsbourg asked her to sing an octave higher than Bardot, "so you'll sound like a little boy."[7] It was recorded in an arrangement by Arthur Greenslade in a studio at Marble Arch.[3] Birkin said she "got a bit carried away with the heavy breathing – so much so, in fact, that I was told to calm down, which meant that at one point I stopped breathing altogether. If you listen to the record now, you can still hear that little gap."[6] There was media speculation, as with the Bardot version, that they had recorded live sex, to which Gainsbourg told Birkin, "Thank goodness it wasn't, otherwise I hope it would have been a long-playing record."[3] It was released in February 1969.[2] The single had a plain cover, with the words "Interdit aux moins de 21 ans" (forbidden to those under 21),[8] and the record company changed the label from Philips to Fontana.[2]
Gainsbourg also asked Marianne Faithfull to record the song with him; she said: "Hah! He asked everybody". Others approached included Valérie Lagrange and Mireille Darc.[3] Bardot regretted not releasing her version, and her friend Jean-Louis Remilleux persuaded her to contact Gainsbourg. They released it in 1986.[5]:147
The title was inspired by a Salvador Dali comment: "Picasso is Spanish, me too. Picasso is a genius, me too. Picasso is a communist, me neither".[8][9] Gainsbourg claimed it was an "anti-fuck" song about the desperation and impossibility of physical love.[3] The lyrics are written as a dialogue between two lovers during sex. Phrases include:
"Je vais et je viens, entre tes reins" ("I go and I come, between your loins")
"Tu es la vague, moi l'île nue" ("You are the wave, I the naked island")
"L'amour physique est sans issue" ("Physical love goes nowhere")
"Moi non plus" ("Nor do I") as a response to "Je t'aime" is a joke some English-speaking listeners did not understand.[10] It is often translated as "I love you - me not anymore", for instance in The Pet Shop Boys' version. The lyrics are sung, spoken and whispered over a baroque organ and guitar track[8][10][11] in C major,[2] with a "languid, almost over-pretty, chocolate-box melody."[3]
When the version with Bardot was recorded, the French press reported that it was an "audio vérité". France Dimanche said the "groans, sighs, and Bardot's little cries of pleasure [give] the impression you're listening to two people making love".[3] The first time Gainsbourg played it in public was in a Paris restaurant immediately after they recorded it . Birkin said that "as it began to play all you could hear were the knives and forks being put down. 'I think we have a hit record,' he said."[3][6]
The lyrical subtleties were lost on late-1960s Brits. What they heard was an expertly stroked organ, orgasmic groans and a soft-focus melody, the musical equivalent of a Vaseline-smeared Emmanuelle movie. It was confirmation that life across the Channel was one of unchecked lubriciousness, and Je t'aime became as essential a part of any successful seduction as a chilled bottle of Blue Nun.
The eroticism was declared offensive. The lyrics are commonly thought to refer to the taboo of sex without love, and were delivered in a breathy, suggestive style. The Observer Monthly Music magazine called it "the pop equivalent of an Emmanuelle movie."[11]
The song culminates in orgasm sounds by Birkin: mostly because of this, it was banned from radio in Spain, Sweden, Brazil, the UK,[11] Italy,[12] Poland, and Portugal, banned before 11pm in France, not played by many radio stations in the United States because it was deemed too risque,[2] and denounced by the Vatican and the L'Osservatore Romano;[11][12] the Vatican excommunicated the record executive who released it in Italy.[8] Birkin says Gainsbourg called the Pope "our greatest PR man."[6]
Birkin said in 2004 that "It wasn't a rude song at all[,] I don't know what all the fuss was about. The English just didn't understand it. I'm still not sure they know what it means."[13] When Gainsbourg went to Jamaica to record with Sly and Robbie, they initially did not get on well. They said "We know just one piece of French music, a song called Je t'aime… Moi Non Plus, which has a girl groaning in it." Gainsbourg said "It's me", and their mood changed immediately.[3]
The song was a commercial success throughout Europe. By 1986, it had sold four million copies.[14] In the UK, it was released on the Fontana label, but, after reaching number 2, it was withdrawn for sale. Gainsbourg arranged a deal with Major Minor Records and on re-release it reached number one, the first banned number one single in the UK[11] and the first single in a foreign language to top the charts. It stayed on the UK chart for 31 weeks.[15] It reached 69 on the Billboard chart in the US; the New York Times called this a "poetic fluke",[10] and Gainsbourg's reaction was "Superbe, superbe!"[14] Mercury Records, the US distributor, faced criticism that the song was "obscene" and there was limited airplay, limiting US sales to around 150,000.[16]
| Chart (1969) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Ö3 Austria Top 40 | 1 |
| German Musikmarkt/Media Control Charts | 3[17] |
| Dutch Top 40 | 2 |
| Irish Singles Chart | 2 |
| Norwegian VG-lista Chart | 1 |
| Swiss Top 100 Singles Chart | 1 |
| UK Singles Chart | 1 |
| US Billboard Hot 100 | 69 |
The song has been covered dozens of times, both serious and comedic.[18] The first covers were instrumentals, "Love at first sight", after the original was banned;[18] the first version by "Sounds Nice" became a top 20 hit.[19] The first parody was written in 1970 by Gainsbourg himself and Marcel Mithois. Titled "Ça", it was recorded by Bourvil and Jacqueline Maillan (fr:Jacqueline Maillan), Bourvil's last release before his death.[18][20] Other comedy versions were made by Frankie Howerd and June Whitfield, Judge Dread, and Gorden Kaye and Vicki Michelle, stars of the BBC TV comedy 'Allo 'Allo!, in character.[18]
The song influenced the 1975 disco classic "Love to Love You Baby" by singer Donna Summer and producer Giorgio Moroder; they duetted "Je t'aime" in a 15-minute version for the film Thank God It's Friday in 1978.[21] In 1998, Sam Taylor-Wood recorded a cover with the Pet Shop Boys for the compilation CD/book "futique" entitled Ambassadors - We Love You, a concept designed to promote collaboration between visual and musical artists. This track was a bonus on the "I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More" CD single.[22][23]
In 2002, Trash Palace published a cover version on their album Positions, featuring Brian Molko of Placebo and Asia Argento. The singers reverse their parts throughout the song, so that sometimes the female persona was sung by Molko.[24][25] Cat Power and Karen Elson performed "a suitably breathy sapphic treatment"[26] in English entitled I love you (me either) for the 2005 tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited.
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The song's riff has been used in songs including: A Fair Affair by Misty Oldland,[40] "Guitar Song" by Texas on the album The Greatest Hits[41] and released as a single in Belgium in 2001; The Speed Freak in 1993 on the "Sonic Mine EP"; Twangy Wigout by Transvision Vamp off their album Little Magnets Versus the Bubble of Babble; Kylie Minogue used a sample and excerpts of "Je t'aime" to back a version of "Breathe" in her 2003 Money Can't Buy concert at the Hammersmith Apollo in London.[42] A studio version of "Je t'aime" by Kylie exists, but is unreleased.
| Preceded by "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival |
UK Singles Chart number one single 7 October 1969 |
Succeeded by "I'll Never Fall In Love Again" by Bobbie Gentry |
| Preceded by "In the Year 2525" by Zager and Evans |
Swiss Singles Chart number one single 2 September 1969 - 21 October 1969 |
Succeeded by "Grüezi wohl, Frau Stirnimaa" by Die Minstrels |
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