Our round up of the most popular, most enduring love songs

By Hannah Nepilova

Published: Monday, 28 August 2023 at 16:44 PM


No one can resist a good love song. And no musical playlist – be it jazz, folk or classical – is complete without one. Here, in no particular order, are ten of the most famous love songs in history.

Most famous love songs of all time

1. ‘Je t’aime, moi non plus’ by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin

Translating as ‘I love you…me neither’, this naughty little song was originally written by director Serge Gainsbourg for Brigitte Bardot in 1967. But the version we know is the one he recorded, in 1969, with his then-partner: the English-French actress and singer Jane Birkin, who died last month, aged 76.

Birkin, apparently had heard the Bardot version and thought it ‘so hot’. She later admitted that ‘I only sang it because I didn’t want anybody else to sing it’, jealous at the thought of Gainsbourg sharing a recording studio with someone else. 

She also ‘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.’

Some speculated that they had actually recorded themselves having sex, to which Gainsbourg retorted: ‘Thank goodness it wasn’t, otherwise I hope it would have been a long-playing record.’