You could hardly have missed the news that Jane Birkin has died.  She was most famous in the UK for the Succès de scandale that was the song by which she will be most remembered – despite her long list of recordings, films  and connection with the Hermès Birkin handbag.

The song was of course Je t’aime …. moi non plus, first released in the UK by the Fontana record label but the fuss that arose after its banning by the BBC – and the Pope – made them withdraw it. Major Minor then immediately rushed into the gap: a commercially shrewd decision. It was the first banned single to reach No 1 and also the first non-English language record to do so.

Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg: Je t’aime …. moi non plus

Jane Mallory Birkin; 14/12/1946 – 16/7/2023. So it goes.

France Gall, who has died recently, won the Eurovision Song Contest for Luxembourg in 1965. She was French as was the song’s composer Serge Gainsbourg. I believe this video is of her performance on the night.

France Gall: Poupée de Cire Poupée de Son

Gall was apparently the subject of a particularly cruel trick by Gainsbourg when he persuaded her to record the song Les Sucettes (Lollipops) about whose double meaning Gall claims she was unaware. (Though the Guardian obituary linked to above says that when requested to lick one for a TV performance, she declined.) The film below makes the lyric’s inference obvious.

France Gall: Les Sucettes

This video outlines the story, along with Gall’s viewpoint.

Isabelle Geneviève Marie Anne “France” Gall: 9/10/1947 – 7/1/2018. So it goes.