"Je t'aime... moi non plus" (French for 'I love you... me neither') is a 1967 song written by Serge Gainsbourg for Brigitte Bardot. In 1969, Gainsbourg recorded the best-known version as a duet with British actress Jane Birkin. Although this version topped the charts in Birkin's native United Kingdom, the first foreign-language song to do so, and number two in Ireland, it was banned in several countries because of its overtly sexual content. In 1976 Gainsbourg directed Birkin in an erotic film of the same name.
History
The song was written and recorded in late 1967 for Gainsbourg's then-girlfriend, Brigitte Bardot. After a disappointing date with Bardot, she called him the following day "and demanded as a penance" that he write, for her, "the most beautiful love song he could imagine"; that night, he wrote "Je t'aime" and "Bonnie and Clyde". 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". However, news of the recording reached the press, and Bardot's husband, German businessman Gunter Sachs, angrily called for the single to be withdrawn. Bardot pleaded with Gainsbourg not to release it. He complied, but was not pleased: "The music is very pure. For the first time in my life, I write a love song and it's taken badly."
In 1968, Gainsbourg and the English actress Jane Birkin began a relationship on the set of the film Slogan. After the end of filming, he asked her to record "Je t'aime" with him. This version was recorded in an arrangement by Arthur Greenslade in a studio at Marble Arch Records.
There was media speculation, as with the Bardot version, that the recording documented unsimulated sex, to which Gainsbourg told Birkin, "Thank goodness it wasn't, otherwise I hope it would have been a long-playing record." Others whom Gainsbourg approached included Valérie Lagrange and Mireille Darc. Gainsbourg described "Je t'aime" as an "anti-fuck" song about the desperation and impossibility of physical love. one report even claimed that the Vatican had excommunicated the record executive who released it in Italy.
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." When Gainsbourg later went to Jamaica to record with Sly and Robbie, they initially did not get on well with Gainsbourg, but their mood changed immediately upon learning that "Je t'aime" was his work. By 1986, it had sold four million copies. In the United Kingdom, it was released on the Fontana label, but, after reaching number two in September 1969, it was withdrawn from sale. Gainsbourg then arranged a deal with Major Minor Records, and on re-release in early October it reached number one, making it the first banned number one single in the UK In the United States, it peaked at number 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Mercury Records, the single's US distributor, faced criticism that the song was "obscene" and it received limited airplay, limiting US sales to around 150,000 copies.
The single was re-released in the UK in late 1974 on the Atlantic Records subsidiary Antic Records, peaking at No. 31 and charting for nine weeks. By August 1969, the single had sold 300,000 copies in Italy, while in France in 1969 alone sold 400,000 copies. In UK sales were over 250,000. By 1996, it had sold 6 million copies worldwide.
{|class="wikitable sortable"
|-
!Chart (1969)
! style="text-align:center;"|Peak<br />position
|-
|Australia (Kent Music Report)
| style="text-align:center;"| 91
|-
| Ö3 Austria Top 40
| style="text-align:center;"| 1
|-
| German Musikmarkt/Media Control Charts
| style="text-align:center;"| 3
|-
|-
| Irish Singles Chart
| style="text-align:center;"| 2
|-
| Mexico (Radio Mil)
| style="text-align:center;"| 5
|-
| Norwegian VG-lista Chart
| style="text-align:center;"| 1
|-
| Swiss Top 100 Singles Chart
| style="text-align:center;"| 1
|-
| UK Singles Chart
| style="text-align:center;"| 1
|-
| US Billboard Hot 100
| style="text-align:center;"| 58
|}
Cover versions
The song has been frequently covered in the years since its release. In 1969, the Hollywood 101 Strings Orchestra released a 7-inch record single (on A/S Records label) with two versions: the A-side featured a fully instrumental recording while the B-side had sexually suggestive vocalizations done by Bebe Bardon. The first covers were instrumentals, "Love at first sight", after the original was banned; (The group's name "sounds nice" represents the two words Paul McCartney said when he heard this instrumental cover of the song.)
The first parody was written in 1970 by Gainsbourg himself and . Titled "Ça", it was recorded by Bourvil and Jacqueline Maillan, Bourvil's last release before his death. 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.
Zvonimir Levačić 'Ševa' and Ivica Lako 'Laky', members of the Croatian antitelevision late night talk show Nightmare Stage, performed a live version of the song as part of a spoof singing competition during the show's airing. This version was later named the weirdest cover of the song ever.
Legacy
The song influenced the 1975 disco track "Love to Love You Baby" by singer Donna Summer and producer Giorgio Moroder. In a note to Neil Bogart, producer A. J. Cervantes (son of politician Alfonso J. Cervantes), who previously worked for Casablanca Records, suggested an idea of Donna Summer recording the song. Bogart initially rejected the idea.
Cervantes' record label Butterfly Records released the disco rendition as "Je t'aime" by an all-female disco group Saint Tropez in August 1977, as part of the album of the same name, Je T'aime (1977). Prompted by the minor success of Saint Tropez, a year later in 1978, Casablanca Records released