1757 Paul Mauriat - L'amour est bleu "Love is Blue"

From: Love is Blue; Year: 1968; Genre: Pop/Orchestral

Off and on for some years now I've had the tune to this song running through my mind, but due to it being an instrumental and thus no lyrics to look up, I had no way of finding out what the song was or who did it. However, the other day that changed when I was going through some old Santo & Johnny records; they'd made a cover of this song and when I heard the tune I recognized it and thus had the song's title. After finding that out it was quite easy to find all of the particulars about the song.
Interestingly enough, this version of the song, which I remember hearing a lot over the years was in and of itself a cover; it was originally written by André Popp and Pierre Cour. Apparently the song started its life off as an entry for the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest. That original version actually had lyrics and was sung by Vicky Leandros, which can be heard here on YouTube. However, in the end it lost the contest to Sandie Shaw's Puppet on a String.
Anyway, even though L'amour est bleu (Love is Blue) has been covered many times, the most memorable version for at least myself is this one, recorded a year later by Paul Mauriat; he did an incredible job transforming a pop song into a pop orchestral piece. One little piece of musical trivia concerning this version of Love is Blue is that it has the distinction of being the only song performed by a French artist to ever top The Billboard Hot 100 in the United States.

Hear the original '68 recording of Love is Blue on YouTube.



My song pick a year ago today: Blue Öyster Cult - (Don't Fear) The Reaper

My song pick two years ago today: The Grateful Dead - Ripple

My song pick three years ago today: Eddie Rabbitt - Step By Step

My song pick four years ago today: Rush - Between the Wheels

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