Serge Gainsbourg had already written "Je T'Aime ... Moi Non Plus" when he and Jane Birkin met. In fact, he wrote it for another woman: world-famous French sex symbol Brigitte Bardot. As the Independent says, Gainsbourg and Bardot recorded the track "in a vocal booth with very steamed-up windows" during a short-lived affair. In a further complication befitting comical French stereotypes, Bardot was married at the time, and her husband objected to the song being released. Gainsbourg conceded and commenced to asking "several high-profile women" to record the track with him, but they turned him down. So when he and Birkin got involved, he asked her. Per Express, Birkin thought Bardot's version was "so hot," and ultimately agreed to do the song because she "didn't want anybody else to sing it."
As the Independent explains, lyrics include "tu vas, tu vas et tu viens / entre mes reins," or, "you come, you come and you go / between my kidneys." Ending the line on "reins" was apparently a metrical choice that more accurately means "loins," not "kidneys." And yet, French Learner simply translates "entre mes reins" as "inside me." But interestingly enough, the song is actually a cynical, anti-love song that compares sexual movement to getting involved with and leaving a person "like the undecided wave." Lyrics flat-out say, "Physical love is a dead end," meaning that sex and love are different. Even the name of the song means "I love you," followed by "Me neither."
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