They were one of the most iconic couples at the time: Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin lived together for a decade, until 1980. Ten years spent loving and hating each other, singing and living together. fusional way, despite the infidelities of the singer. One of most beautiful French songs was in fact born from this relationship: I love you … Me neither. A love song and nothing more, according to Serge Gainsbourg himself. "It's a love song, that's all. And then I love you ’, why Me neither’? Because I'm too modest a boy to say 'Me too'", he revealed, in an excerpt from the documentary Gainsbourg, a lifetime, broadcast on Friday February 26 on France 3. This modesty, Jane Birkin also spoke about it in the documentary, confirming that the singer was a very modest and reserved person: "Serge was very modest. People imagine he was floating on rue de Verneuil naked, no. I have never seen him standing naked. He was someone of extreme modesty", declares the one that is the mother of Charlotte gainsbourg, younger sister of Natacha and Paul.
A very shy man
This modesty and shyness are found in the lyrics of the couple's flagship song according to Jane Birkin: "And as strange as it may sound, I think that explains the title Je t'aime moi non plus". If Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin have lived a passionate romance, yet they were very different at that level, as the singer's brother asserts. "Modesty is not the word that comes to mind when I think of Jane. When she was fourteen or fifteen, she undressed in front of her window so that the neighbor opposite could take advantage, a complete stranger", he reveals in the documentary. It must be said that many relatives had noticed the extreme modesty of the singer : "Everyone was talking about that shyness. [Brigitte] Bardot also elsewhere. And it's lovely to know shy men".
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