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In 1968 Gainsbourg had written "Je t'aime, moi non plus [I love you / Me either]"
An explicitly erotic song which he had recorded with Brigitte Bardot. After the pair's relationship had ended, Bardot begged Gainsbourg not to release the recording as a single and Gainsbourg, the perfect gentleman, respected her wishes. However, in 1969 Jane recorded the notorious song as a duet with Gainsbourg and it appeared on the pair's joint album "Jane Birkin Serge Gainsbourg".
When "Je t'aime moi non plus" was released as a single later that year it caused an absolute scandal. Indeed, Gainsbourg's erotic lyrics and Jane's passionate whispering totally outraged public opinion. The international press attacked the song's "lewd" message, radios banned it from their playlists and the Vatican went so far as to issue a statement condemning the immoral nature of the song. In short, "Je t'aime moi non plus" benefited from a huge amount of free publicity and rocketed straight to the top of the charts, selling around a million copies in the space of just a few months. Needless to say, Gainsbourg and Birkin became the most scandalous couple of the year and their relationship became the subject of intense media scrutiny.
The title is somewhat non-sensical. It means "I love you. Neither do I." or "Nor do I". Which isn't entirely correct. It is poetic license. And we'll have to hear from Serge Gainsbourg what he really meant by that:
"I love women as an object, the beautiful women, the mannequins, the models. This is the inner painter in me. I never tell them I love them. Je t'aime... moi non plus (I love you... me neither) expresses erotism overcoming sentimentalism… So many songs about romantic and sentimental love, encounters, discoveries, jealousy, illusions, desillusions, betrayals, remorses, hatred, etc... Then why not devote a song to a sort of love much more current these days: physical love? "Je t'aime" isn't an obscene song, it's very reasonable to me, and fills this gap. Its explanation is that girls say "I love you" during sex, and the man with their ridiculous virility doesn't believe them. They think the girls only say it as a result of enjoyment, of pleasure. I guess I believe the girls, or maybe that's a result of my fear. But that's also an aesthetic step, a search of absoluteness"
Leave it to the French to know how to weave together outrageousness, philosophy, eroticism and poetry. I think I get it. Moi non plus.
Quoted from here (a Serge Gainsbourg discussion group):
COMMENTS
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Theban
18:07 Jun 07 2010
This is wonderful