Brigitte Bardot: 10 Essential Songs

SOURCE:Rolling Stone|BY:Simon Vozick-Levinson

At her height in the Sixties, she was a singer who held the world's attention like no other

RIP

At her height in the Sixties, she was a singer who held the world's attention like no other

December 29, 2025

(Original Caption) French actress Brigitte Bardot as Jill in MGM's A Very Private Affair, directed by Louis Malle.

Brigitte Bardot in 1962's 'A Very Private Affair' Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Music might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Brigitte Bardot, or even the second or third. But the late French actress, sex symbol, and controversial political commentator was also a fantastic pop singer in the 1960s, and that’s an element of her complex legacy that’s worth remembering. In her close collaborations with writer and producer Serge Gainsbourg and beyond, Bardot brought the same incandescent charisma that captivated countless moviegoers into the recording studio. Her vocal presence was a key part of her larger-than-life persona — one of many ways she held the world’s attention better than almost anyone in her heyday — and it’s among the reasons she’s continued to be name-checked through the decades by musicians from Bob Dylan to Chappell Roan. Here are 10 of Bardot’s greatest songs.

‘Sidonie’

Image Credit: Jean Claude Pierdet/INA/Getty Images

Already world famous for several years by 1962, Brigitte Bardot used her film stardom to launch a music career in her late twenties with “Sidonie,” a song from the Louis Malle-directed romance in which she starred that year, Vie Privée (A Very Private Affair in English). A folk number about a woman with many lovers that was perfect for Bardot’s sex symbol status, the song introduced her as both a strummy guitar player and a chanteuse with a voice as light as air, perfect for France’s burgeoning Sixties pop scene.
‘La Madrague’

Image Credit: Alisdair MacDonald /Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty Images

A meditation on summertime sadness decades before Lana Del Rey was born, “La Madrague” finds Bardot mourning how the wind dishevels her hair on the beach and even sunburns as the backing music ebbs and flows around her. “My sorrow will be like no one, I will keep it like a friend,” she sings in French as she bemoans returning to the city. The 1963 single, which came off her debut LP Brigitte Bardot Sings, proved a big hit in France.
‘Moi Je Jouie’

Image Credit: Jean Adda/INA/Getty Images

A couple of years after the yé-yé explosion, Bardot put her own bubbly spin on the folky French micro-genre in 1964 with “Moi Je Jouie,” a playful song about dancing cheek-to-cheek and falling in love. In one lyric she sings “You are my toy” (auguring Madonna’s whole Eighties image), and then “Tu crieras bientot ‘Au secours’” (“You’ll be crying out for help”) a little later. But you can hear the smile in her voice since, for Bardot, it was always just a game.
‘Harley Davidson’