Todays post isn't an album, it's a song. A very notorious song, with some surprising covers.
I was back home in Harrogate in 1969 and I spent a lot of time hanging around the Transport Cafe in New Park. The jukebox had an amazing selection of all the latest and popular songs (1969 was a brilliant year for music) and included on the playlist were three records that were banned on the BBC, so obviously they were played more times than anything else.
One of the songs was 'Wet Dream' by Max Romeo. It was a catchy singalong reggae tune released in Jamaica in '68 but made famous in England in '69. Despite Max claiming the song was about a leaky roof !! (yeah, right) it had the line "give the fanny to me" which removed all doubt as to it's real meaning.
Another was 'Take Off Your Clothes' by Peter Sarstedt (reviewed in VV 13 June 2020). It was in fact the b-side of 'As Though It Were A Movie' but because of it's title and lyrics it got more jukebox time than the a-side.
And then there was 'Je T'aime ... Moi Non Plus'. Translated as either "I love you ... me neither" or "I love you ... neither do I" it was written by Serge Gainsbourg in 1967 at the request of his then girlfriend the legendary Brigitte Bardot. She wanted Serge to write "the most beautiful love song" and after writing it the two of them recorded it in a steamy two hour session. Brigitte was still married to Gunter Sachs at the time and after he got wind of the recording Serge decided not to release it. Ten years later it did get released and these days it can easily be found on YouTube !
The rather odd title was apparently suggested by a quote from Salvador Dali when he was talking about Picasso. He said "Picasso is Spanish, me too. Picasso is a genius, me too. Picasso is a Communist, me neither."
The following year, 1968, Serge began a relationship with Jane Birkin, an English actress he met on the set of the movie 'Slogan'. She knew of the Bardot version but when Serge asked her to record it she initially said no. Then she relented, in her words "I only sang it because I didn't want anybody else to sing it". I'm not sure if she was aware that Serge also asked Marianne Faithfull who also refused but didn't relent. As Marianne said later, she was with Mick Jagger and he wouldn't have liked it.
So it was that Serge and Jane went into the studio and came out with the finished article. Jane admitted that she really went over the top when it came to all the heavy breathing, and the same rumours went around as they had with Bardot - that this was the sound of the pair actually making love whilst recording. Gainsbourg's response to that was "Thank goodness it wasn't, otherwise I hope it would have been a long-playing record." This version was and is the most popular, but many others have been done since.
Because of the notoriety of the vocal, almost immediately a studio group called Sounds Nice put out an instrumental retitled 'Love at First Sight'. Rumour has it that the groups name came from Paul McCartney, who upon hearing the instrumental said "sounds nice". Who knows.
At last count there have been over 100 covers of this song, including from the likes of Malcolm McLaren and The Pet Shop Boys. One cover that stands out though would have to be from Donna Summer. It probably shouldn't have been a surprise that Donna would record it at some point, her single 'Love To Love You Baby' had also been banned by the BBC for much the same reason - basically an orgasm set to music. Her version of 'Je t'aime ..' came on the 3-disc soundtrack 'Thank God It's Friday' from the movie of the same name. The third disc was only single-sided, one side obviously being Donna's 'Je t'aime' and the other side was blank with a label stating "Special one-sided record (play other side)". I've never seen a 3-disc 5 sided set before - very odd. The other distinctive feature of this recording was it's length. It went on for 15m51s. Serge would have approved I'm sure. The title on the record inner also included *BPM 112 which stood for 112 beats per minute. This album was amongst the "estate sale collection" I was recently given, which prompted me to do this post.
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