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Soul Music: Plaisir D’Amour

The power and emotional impact of the French love song, Plaisir D’Amour, written by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini.

Soul Music recalls the French Love song - Plaisir D’Amour - which went on to inspire Elvis Presley’s hit, I Can't Help Falling in Love with You. It has been recorded by Marianne Faithfull and busked on the streets of Paris by The Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson.

It has also touched the lives of former American Military Academy Freshman Andrew Scott and recently married couple Henry (76) and Christine Wallace (82) who fell in love on a moonlit New Year's Eve. Written in 1784 by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini, Plaisir d'Amour muses on the pleasures and pains of love and was inspired by a poem which appears in Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian's novel Célestine.

(Photo: A couple in Paris, the man holding flowers behind his back. Credit: Thinkstock)

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27 minutes

Last on

Sun 12 Feb 201709:06GMT
BBC World Service Online, Australasia & UK DAB/Freeview only

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