'J'ai Deux Amours’ – Josephine Baker

In what has become a pseudo-anthem for the American expat in Paris, ‘J’ai Deux Amours’ plays on Josephine Baker’s dual status as both foreigner and adopted resident of the capital. Celebrating her two cultural loves (the literal translation of the title is ‘I have two loves’), the lyrics from Géo Koger and Henri Varna may also serve – some have suggested – as a metaphor for Baker’s bisexuality, which was subject to much attention during her pre-WWII heyday. During the war, the singer/dancer/cabaret artist retrained as a counter-espionage agent, before working for the Croix-Rouge and later in intelligence for the Resistance movement. By 1945, she’d very much distanced herself from her native USA, to such an extent that she would eventually change the second verse of the refrain from ‘J’ai deux amours, mon pays et Paris’ (‘I have two loves, my country and Paris’) to ‘J’ai deux amours, mon pays, c’est Paris’ (‘I have two loves, my country is Paris’).