"Libertine" French pronunciation: [libɛʁtin]is a 1986 song recorded by French artist Mylène Farmer. It was the third single from her first studio album Cendres de lune and was released on 1 April 1986. It was particularly known for its huge music video, produced as a film and which contains explicit sexual and violent scenes. It met success on the French chart, becoming thus Farmer's first big hit. In 2002, the song was successfully covered by Kate Ryan, who reached the top 20 in several European countries.

The song was inspired by a rock music song, "L'Amour tutti frutti", composed in 1984 by Jean-Claude Déquéant. It had not achieved success at the time, but was appreciated by the duo Farmer / Boutonnat who wanted to use it for their next song. Although it is one of her very few songs for which she didn't write the lyrics herself, Farmer can be credited with the origin of the song, because when she was doing singing tests on the demo version of the music, she repeated "Je suis une catin" ("I am a whore"), which inspired Boutonnat for the theme of the song. Two vinyl's covers were released: the first one, in April, shows dark-haired Farmer wearing an orange robe, and the second one, in June, using an image from the videoclip with red-haired Farmer with a pistol in her hand. The song became a hit, fortunately, because Polydor, the record label of Farmer, could at any time break off the contract signed with the singer for two albums if the song had not been successful. In addition, the song allowed the album Cendres de Lune to be a success.

At the time, various remixes were produced by Boutonnat to the nightclubs. An English version of the song, "Bad Girl", was recorded, but unlike "My Mum Is Wrong", it was not released as a single because the recording was not very conclusive.

"Libertine", one of the few songs whose lyrics were not composed by Farmer, contains many explicit references to sexuality. Some phrases are very obscure or seem inconsistent.

...
Wikipedia