“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 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. The English version by Vicky Leandros also appeared as “Colours of Love” in some locations including the UK.
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 also recorded it in German (as “Blau wie das Meer”), Italian (“L’amore è blu”) and Dutch (“Liefde is zacht”) . 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. Its five-week run at the top was second longest of any instrumental of the Hot 100 era next to 1960’s Theme From A Summer Place. Not surprisingly, the song spent 11 weeks atop Billboard’s Easy 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. The Mauriat recording also reached number 12 on the UK Singles Chart.
Mauriat’s version was featured repeatedly in an episode of Chris Carter’s television series Millennium titled “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 Simpsons episodes “There’s No Disgrace Like Home” and “The Blue and the Gray.”

By Marty Robbins

By Paul Mauriat

Lyrics