"L'amour est bleu" (English title: "Love Is Blue") is a song
whose music was composed by André Popp, and whose lyrics were
written by Pierre Cour, in 1967. Brian Blackburn later wrote
English-language lyrics for it. First performed in French by
Greek-German singer Vicky Leandros (appearing as
Vicky) as the Luxembourgian entry in the Eurovision Song
Contest 1967, it has since been recorded by many other
musicians, most notably French orchestra leader Paul Mauriat,
whose familiar instrumental version became the only number-one
hit by a French artist to top the Billboard Hot 100 in
America.
The song describes the pleasure and pain of love in terms of
colours (blue and grey) and elements (water and wind). The
English lyrics ("Blue, blue, my world is blue …") focus on
colours only (blue, grey, red, green, and black), using them to
describe elements of lost love. An odd twist in the lyric uses
the word "gone" in the same pattern used to introduce each
colour, just like in Fred Ebb and John Kander's "My Coloring
Book"; "colour him gone".
The song was performed second during the 1967 Eurovision
Song Contest. At the close of voting, it had received 17
points, placing 4th in a field of 17, behind "Il doit faire
beau là-bas" (France), "If I Could Choose" (Ireland) and the
winning song, "Puppet on a String" (United Kingdom). Some forty
years after its original release, "L'amour est bleu", along
with Domenico Modugno's "Nel blu dipinto di blu" (better known
as "Volare") and Mocedades' "Eres tú", still counts as one of
very few non-winning Eurovision entries ever to become a
worldwide hit.
Greek-born Leandros recorded the song both in French and
English, and had a modest hit in Europe with it, but in Japan
and Canada she had a big hit with this song. She subsequently
recorded it in Greek, German (as "Blau wie das Meer"), Italian
("L'amore è blu"), Spanish and Dutch ("Liefde is zacht") as
well. The song has since become a favourite of Contest fans,
most notably appearing as part of a medley introducing the
semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 in Athens, one
of only two non-winning songs to be involved (the other being
"Dschinghis Khan").
It was succeeded as Luxembourgian representative at the 1968
Contest by Chris Baldo & Sophie Garel with "Nous vivrons
d'amour". Vicky Leandros went on to win the Contest five years
later with the song "Après toi", again representing
Luxembourg.
In late 1967, Paul Mauriat conducted an orchestral "easy
listening" version that was a number-one hit in the USA for
five weeks in February and March 1968, becoming the only
performance by a French artist ever to top the Billboard Hot
100. Not surprisingly, the song spent 11 weeks atop
Billboard'sEasy Listening survey, and held the
longest-lasting title honours on this chart for 25 years. It is
the best-known version of the song in the United States.
Mauriat's version was featured repeatedly in an episode of
Chris Carter's television series
Millenniumtitled
"A Room With No View,"which originally aired on April
24, 1998 on the Fox Network. During the episode, the
omnipresent melody is used by a kidnapper to brainwash a group
of youths. His version is also briefly heard in
The Simpsonsepisode "There's No Disgrace Like Home."
"L'amour est bleu"/"Love is Blue" is noted as one of the
most-covered and biggest-selling Eurovision Songs ever, and
remains a widely familiar melody due in part to its continued
recurrence in pop-culture mediums. Jeff Beck, Claudine Longet,
The Dells, Ed Ames, Johnny Mathis, Marty Robbins, Al Martino,
Frank Sinatra, Lawrence Welk, Chara, Michèle Torr, and Future
Bible Heroes are among the artists who have covered it.