Thursday 18 August 2011

Top 9s... FOREIGN LANGUAGE SONGS Je T'aime...moi non plus Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainsbourg (FRENCH)



Translating as 'I Love You...Me Neither' (inspired by a comment made by Salvador Dali), 'Je T'aime...moi non plus' was written and recorded by Serge Gainsbourg for and with his girlfriend at the time, Brigitte Bardot.
In 1969, having moved on to British actress Jane Birkin, they re-recorded it.
It made UK chart history, when by being banned, it was withdrawn by the original label, Fontana, and then issued on Major Minor. This meant that shops were selling two different labels (although the same song, if you see what I mean...) The one on Fontana reached number two, whereas the one on Major Minor went all the way to the top spot in October that year.
If you haven't heard it before, you may now see why it was banned back then in parts of Europe and the UK.
For its solo week in pole position in the UK,Top Of The Pops played an instrumental version, re-recorded by Sounds Nice, a group of session musicians.
Also reached number one in Austria, Norway and Switzerland.
Rather poetically, it got to 69 in the US!


The track inspired Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder to write 'Love To Love You Baby'.
Here is Donna's version of 'Je T'aime'.
See silver-tongued Serge make his moves on Whitney Houston back in the 80s below. Très amusing!




And I'm gonna shoehorn this in too, if only because I love Diana Rigg.  Jane Birkin makes a brief appearance at the end of the clip.
If you have never seen Evil Under The Sun, you so should...

No comments:

Post a Comment