"Les Sucettes" ("Lollipops") is a French pop song written by Serge Gainsbourg and first recorded by France Gall in 1966. One of Gall's biggest hits, it was an unusually risqué song for its time, although she has said she was unaware of the fact when performing it. Meaning "Les Sucettes" is, on the surface, a yé-yé-style song about a girl named Annie who likes aniseed-flavoured lollipops; much of the lyrical content plays up the homonyms of "Annie" and "anis" (aniseed). But Gainsbourg's lyric also contains double meanings referring to oral sex, such as a line about barley sugar running down Annie's throat. The very noun for lollipop in French, "sucette", is the substantivised verb "sucer", sucking – so that the title and the refrain ("Annie aime les sucettes", Annie loves lollipops) are far more evocative in French than in the English translation. A possible translation to preserve the innuendo would be "Annie loves suckers". The song also features a direct double entendre, stating that Annie has lollipops "pour quelques pennies" (for a few pennies), which can also be heard as "pour quelques pénis" (for a few penises). Music video A film clip for the song was directed by Jean-Christophe Averty for the TV show Au risque de vous plaire (lit. "At the Risk of Pleasing You"). It featured props playing on the sexual references, with lollipops that were somewhat phallic rather than the traditional circle shape, interspersed with cutaways of young women suggestively sucking on lollipops. Another video was filmed, featuring Gall herself in a schoolgirl uniform inside a house, singing the song. Reaction Gall has said that she did not understand the double meaning of the song when she recorded it at age 18. By Gall's account, she did not realize until later why the filming of the clip attracted so many visitors to the set. Upon its release, the song was a success in France and Belgium. In France, it entered the charts at #30 on July 15 and by the following week, it had climbed to its peak of #9. Gall was said to be extremely upset upon finally learning the truth about the song's double meaning — "mortified, hiding herself away for weeks, refusing to face anyone". Gall said that she had sung Gainsbourg's songs "with an innocence of which I'm proud. I was pained to then learn that he had turned the situation to his