In 1969, the BBC’s Top of the Pops banned its first song in the program’s history for its inherently sexual nature, despite the songwriter calling it an “anti-f***” song and the fact that he wrote it by request of a woman with whom he had just had a terrible date.
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The man was Serge Gainsbourg, and his date, who demanded he write her a love song as penance for their less-than-stellar rendezvous, was Brigitte Bardot. Ironically, the version Bardot and Gainsbourg recorded wouldn’t see the light of day for years. Bardot’s husband requested (again, demanded) they pull the record, and after Bardot pleaded to Gainsbourg, they did.
Once you hear it, it’s easy to see why.
Serge Gainsbourg Wrote This Banned, Suggestive Song After a Bad Date
Serge Gainsbourg and Brigit Bardot had already worked together extensively by the time they went on an early date that was reportedly so disastrous that, the next day, Bardot called Gainsbourg and demanded he write a love song as his penance. Gainsbourg came up with two: “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Je t’aime… moi non plus”, which translates to “I love you… me neither.” The title came from a Salvador Dali comment: “Picasso is Spanish, me too. Picasso is a genius, me too. Picasso is a communist, me neither.”
Gainsbourg said the song criticized physical affection without love, hence his “anti-f***” descriptor. But according to the engineers who were in the studio while Gainsbourg and Bardot recorded their version of the song, the musicians had no problem with physical affection. In fact, one engineer recalled “heavy petting” in the vocal booth. Upon hearing the song, Bardot’s husband demanded they pull the record, and they did.
So, Gainsbourg found another duet partner: Jane Birkin. The model, actor, and singer had already heard Bardot’s performance, which she called “so hot” in a 2009 interview with The Telegraph. Wanting to imbue her own sensuality into the track, Birkin recalled, “I 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.”
Birkin’s panting obviously didn’t bother the public too much. Her and Gainsbourg’s 1969 version of the song topped the charts in the U.K., Switzerland, Austria, and Norway. It peaked at No. 2 in the Netherlands and Ireland, and No. 3 in Germany. It had an expectedly modest performance at No. 58 in the oft-puritanical U.S.
From the BBC’s ‘Top of the Pops’ to the Pope in Vatican City
Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin’s steamy love (or anti-love) song, “Je t’aime… moi non plus”, was a shock to the global music community. Despite its successful chart performance, radio stations began banning the song from the airwaves, thanks in no small part to a rumor that Gainsbourg and Birkin actually had sex in the studio. Needless to say, her sighs and moans were nothing short of believable. The BBC program Top of the Pops banned the French pop song altogether, marking the first time the show ever banned a song. As Birkin recalled to the Telegraph, “It was banned immediately in Italy by the Pope. But Serge just called him ‘our greatest PR man.’”
Indeed he was. Nothing piqued public interest quite like the news that there was a single so salacious, so sexy, that Vatican City and its newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, denounced the song and excommunicated the head of the record label who released the song in Italy. And that was after the record label released the single in a plain white sleeve that read, “Interdit aux moins de 21 ans,” or “forbidden to those under 21.”
The song remains one of the most scandalous in pop music history. From a non-musical perspective, the song highlighted the cognitive dissonance between the public’s interest in sex and sensuality and the greater societal idea of modesty and prudence. Some researchers suggest “Je t’aime… moi non plus” directly contributed to a “dramatic spike in the birth rate,” per The Times.
So, someone was listening…or at least had the record on, anyway.
Photo by Universal Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
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