Jane Birkin, “Je t’aime moi non plus”: a scandal, with elegance
On December 13, Paris dedicated its first street to Jane Birkin. A pedestrian bridge that connects the banks of the Canal Saint-Martin in the 10th arrondissement bears the name of the singer and actress: “Jane Birkin catwalkThe inauguration coincided with the anniversary of the birth of Jane Mallory Birkin, born on 14 December 1946 and passed away on 16 July 2023, and took on the value of a public gesture of memory, rather than celebration. Simplicity and sensuality, with spontaneity and naturalnessin a mix of French chic and British nonchalance: at the inauguration of “Catwalk Jane Birkin”, the daughters of the late artist, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon, also paid homage in some way to their mother’s iconic style, as well as her figure. For her part, Jane Birkin has been able to combine music, cinema, style and collective imagination, becoming also an icon of freedom, in its profoundly emotional and transgressive nature, with elegance. It comes like this too”Je t’aime… moi non plus”, the song that left its mark more than any other.
The story of the song begins before Jane Birkinin 1967, when Serge Gainsbourg he wrote it for Brigitte Bardotthen his partner, who demanded that after a disappointing date he write for her “the most beautiful love song he could imagine”. Thus it began take shape, from a request born as sentimental reparation and transformed into a creative gesture, a love song that focuses on the body, the voice, the physical dialogue. The recording with Bardot was never released, however, after the news reached the attention of her husband. The song will therefore end up seeing the light only a few years later, when in 1969 Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin found themselves together on the set of the film “Slogan”. Thanks to their relationship, the decision to bring that suspended song back to the studio also became concrete. It was Birkin who lent his voice to the version that was decisive in changing the fate of the song and, in part, his own. Yet, before reaching her, Gainsbourg took other paths, asking everyone to record the song, including Marianne Faithfull. When Birkin entered the studio, however, the choice was clear. Gainsbourg asked her to sing higher, to move the register, to produce a sound that breaks with the idea of classical seduction. The result is a voice that does not play a role, but occupies a space. Jane Birkin remains linked to “Je t’aime… moi non plus”, but does not remain a prisoner of it.
The title itself comes from a quote attributed to Salvador Dalí: “Picasso is Spanish, so am I. Picasso is a genius, so am I. Picasso is a communist, I’m not.” Gainsbourg calls the song an “anti-fuck”a reflection on the impossibility of physical love as a solution. The text is constructed as a dialogue during a sexual act, without consolatory metaphors: “Je vais et je viens, entre tes reins”, “Tu es la vague, moi l’île nue”, “L’amour physique est sans issue”. Words spoken, sung, whispered to a melody that contrasts with the content and amplifies the scandal. It’s not just eroticism, it’s exposure of the body as language.
Jane Birkin went through it all without ever separating voice, presence and style. His participation was not interpretation, but adherence to an idea of freedom that becomes a cultural form. The same principle runs through his relationship with fashion, with cinema, with public space. The walkway on the Canal Saint-Martin, inaugurated by his daughters Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon, returns this thread, paying homage to a figure who combined private gesture and public sign, intimacy and city. “Je t’aime… moi non plus” remains the point of origin of this trajectory, a song that turned a scandal into language and a rumor into history.
