Original subtitles

♫ ("Sexy MF" by Prince)

- Since the birth of modern pop culture,

sex has been used to sell music, just like it

has been used to sell everything else.

- Thank you very much.

- And today, more than ever, the world's

best selling artists are flaunting sex.

So, sex sells.

But what I want to find out is, why and how

some songs can make you actually feel more sexy.

I'm going to speak with musicians, producers

and singers who have created some of the

sexiest sounds ever.

Scientists who believe that music physically

causes sexual pleasure.

And along the way, I'm hoping to discover

what are the best songs to have sex to?

- And we're rolling.

- Let's get it on.

♫ ("Let's get it on" by Marvin Gaye)

When that came out, it became my calling card.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

But the thing about it is, it lets the girl know

exactly what you had in mind!

- "Rapture" by Blondie

♫ ("Rapture" by Blondie)

Each person has their sex to have sex to.

I've chosen Blondie, because there's a

rolling bassline in it which is funky,

and I think people can see that I'm enjoying it.

So, they react to it.

- Sleeping Pill, by Queenadreena.

♫("Sleeping Pill", by Queenadreena)

It's got this constant grinding rhythm that is just,

it's lovely, it's finding oneself in a very

enclosed, intimate space.

- My song is Plan B, Love Goes Down

♫ ("Love Goes Down" by Plan B)

There's this lyric that he says in it,

something about pulling you close and laying you

down on the bed, and every time I hear it,

I'm like, "ooh, yeah

that sounds good." (laughs)

(rock guitar) - [Narrator] Different songs

do it for different people.

But might there be a common formula, shared by

all songs that make people want to get horizontal?

For most people, sex and music both become a big deal

at around the same time, when they're in their

early teens.

And when I was a teenager, I got most of my musical

influences, from my mum, Ellenor.

- I remember growing up, with a coffee.

Is that where you first discovered music?

This was grandad's coffee.

- Definitely. I mean, for a young age

I can remember my chin be notched on the table,

and listening to the music coming out of the jukebox.

I remember the girls coming on the buses,

the bus conductors coming in for their coffee and

they would stand next to the jukebox and maybe

start dancing and things like that.

- You loved Rod Stewart.

♫ ("Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" By Rod Stewart)

What is it about Rod Stewart--

- Nothing. - Does he still do it for you?

- Oh, definitely. Definitely. (laughs)

I've been seeing his muscles as he's gotten older.

I just think he oozed with sex appeal.

And I just loved his music, just the way he moved,

and the huskiness in his voice.

I just get this warm lovely tingly sensation, still

(laughs) when I hear him.

- Can you remember when you were growing up,

if there was a big song that was like, the sexy song.

- "Je T'aime"

- Really?

- Yes. I remember that if it was yesterday.

Now I'm not sure if it was in the coffee,

and my dad had so many complaints he was

asked to remove it.

- No. - But yet, that was a

big, big one.

- Did you know what they were singing about?

- No not really I just heard the heavy breathing,

I didn't have a clue what they were doing

or whatever.

But again I loved the tune I thought it was great.

- Do you have a song to have sex to?

- No. Don't need it.

I'll make more music.

(laughs)

- Good answer.

It's no great surprise to hear that "Je T'aime"

raised eyebrows in Suburban Fife.

The song caused outrage all over the world

when it was released in 1969.

It was banned by the BBC

and it went on to sell four million copies.

If there's one song that epitomizes

sexual freedom, it's got to be "Je T'aime".

I am beyond excited as I'm off to chat with the

woman who sung on the definitive version,

my favorite version of the song, Jane Birkin.

♫ ("Je T'aime" by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg)

Jane was only 22 when she recorded that classic version

of the song, with Serge Gainsbourg.

Not only was "Je T'aime" sexy, it was widely believed

to be a recording of her and Serge actually having sex.

When you look at the lyrics,

they're not as explicit

as everyone-- - No, they're

philosophical, actually.

Even when he says "I come in and out from your...

- Kidneys? (Laughs)

- It would be kidneys in English, that's why we

never bothered to do a translation.

But it's the back of a girl's back in natural fact.

But it sounded so beautiful

and Serge said it's philosophical because

you can't go anywhere.

For a man, that's it.

And so I thought, oh that's very,

that's a new (laughs) facet that I haven't thought of.

♫ ("Je T'aime" by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg)

Even the title, "Je T'aime moi non plus" doesn't mean

"I love you so do I".

It's "I love you nor do I".

So what people talk for a great love song was also

written by a man who didn't

believe that the other person loved him.

He said that it was, thanks to me singing an

octave over the Bardot version

that gave it a sort of,

choir boy thing

that was perhaps what made it such a shock to people too

because it sounded so pure.

And poetic, but nonetheless sexual,

where you absolutely know what they're both doing.

- That's the job you did well because

everybody thinks you-- - Actress.

(laughs)

I flung myself into it so much, I guess

I got carried away.

- Do you think anyone else could have

made this record and had this response,

apart from Serge?

- I'm sure that it was a success because it

was in French.

And also because it was heavy breathing, because

that doesn't need any- it has no frontiers.

(laughs)

But because it's French gave it great charm, sure.

- Do you still get reaction to "Je T'aime"?

- In London I was in a taxi and

he screamed on the brakes, he said "Fucking Je T'aime!

I had fucking five children off of that fucking song!"

So you think really if one is going to be remembered

for anything, then "Je T'aime moi non plus" is it.

I can just hear it, as you go out feet first.

(laughs)

It will.

- [Narrator] For me, no one has managed to get close

to Jane and Serge's ecstatic performance.

A true masterpiece, and definitely

a song to have sex to.

♫ ("Je T'aime" by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg)

- I believe in love, I wanted something about

love on me so that's why I chose this song,

"Je T'aime moi non plus".

There's something personal about it.

Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin

are literally describing what they are doing.

You can imagine straightaway that he's on her,

making love.

He's stopping because he doesn't want to...

Ejaculate?

And the end of the song is, like, the orgasm.

♫ ("Je T'aime" by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg)

- [Narrator] Thirty years after Serge and Jane

scandalized the world with Je T'aime, another

jewel emerged, with songs that made a lot of people

feel a little bit tingly.

♫ ("La Femme D'Argent" by Air)

Electronic pop icons Air produced songs that weren't

about sex, but they oozed sex nonetheless.

I'm going to the band's studio, to meet one half of Air,

Jean-Benoit.

- Bonjour!

(both speaking in foreign language)

Wow, these are the things I would recognize.

For many, the sexiest Air song is

"Sexy Boy". ♫ ("Sexy Boy" by Air)

- "Sexy Boy" has been written in

at most, fifteen minutes.

(laughs) - Fifteen!

- Yeah, yeah.

♫ ("Sexy Boy" by Air)

There was on TV there was a report about a fashion show,

and there were some men walking and

showing their clothes,

and so, "Sexy Boy" came just like that.

- Do you think there is such a thing

as a song to have sex to?

- Personally I can't make love

listening to music because I can't concentrate

on what I do.

(Both laugh)

I think that music, you know, has this amazing power

of catching vibes, because music are vibrations

and so music can copy and reflect the vibes of love.

Which maybe, like the alpha waves, you know that we

have in our brain when we make love or when we

relax, or when we feel good.

And I think that music can catch that.

I mean I don't think there is like a, sort of a

precise science about sexy sounds or sexy chords

but most of the time it's something that is not

aggressive, so

(plays piano)

The bass always stays the same.

(plays piano)

- [Narrator] So far on my journey,

I've discovered that philosophy, wordplay, sensuality

and alpha waves seem to be the things that make music

really sexy.

But I think I've only just scratched the surface

on my quest to find out the secret of what makes a song

a song to have sex to.

- ♫ Well since my baby left me..

- [Narrator] Since the first days of rock n roll,

pop stars have been making audiences go weak at the knees.

- That's what Elvis was, he was sexy, he looked sexy

he sounded sexy.

He wore outfits which all you wanted to do was

just look at him.

He wasn't the king of rock n roll,

he was the king of sex, really.

(Elvis' guitar solo, audience screams)

- In 1957, Elvis had to be filmed from the waist up

by the Ed Sullivan Show, for fear of sending

America's youth into sexual meltdown.

♫ ("Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood)

And the perceived power of music to promote sexuality

continued to alarm the gatekeepers.

In 1983, a bunch of unknown Liverpudlians

had their debut single banned.

♫ ("Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood)

And in the process, Frankie Goes to Hollywood

hit number one, with one of the

best-selling UK singles ever.

I'm meeting Trevor Horn, who produced "Relax"

to find out what he did to make it so controversial.

Not so much a song to have sex to,

as a song to have an orgy to.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood, "Relax", was a real

kind of benchmark of things changing in terms of

sexual revolution in music.

- Well I think "Relax" reflected a culture that was

going on at the time.

We just had fun pretending that, you know,

guys were having huge orgasms and

hose pipes full of semen and things like that.

And making jokes about them as we were making the record.

♫ "Huah!"

That beat was quite insistent, you know,

dance records are traditionally around 125.

But "Relax" was, I think, 116 BPM, slightly slower.

But it gave you that sort of very insistent thud,

kind of thing.

- It still got something that's kind of, you know,

and kind of I guess it's raucous and

debauched sex as opposed to nice.

(laughs) - Well I suppose it suggests

a lot of men trying to have an orgasm, "Relax".

Where a song like "Moments in Love"

is more tender, it feels much more like normal sex.

(laughs)

♫ ("Moments in Love" by Art of Noise)

- "Moments in Love", also produced by Trevor,

manages to be sexy in a totally different way.

It's more about mood and suggestion.

Where did you start with that and what did you set out to

achieve with that song, I guess?

- I suppose I was thinking about, the kind of track

that maybe you could have sex to.

Ten minutes long, not too fast.

The way it used to work with the Art of Noise,

Paul Morley who is sort of journalist

would come up with a title.

And in this case he came up with the tile,

"Moments in Love".

And very cleverly, Anne Dudley came up with this

one little bit.

♫ ("Moments in Love" by Art of Noise)

(plays a cappella vocal singing, "Mo-ments, in love")

That's Anne Dudley. You know,

but I always remember, I always remember playing it

to my late wife in the car.

And she said, "That's really boring.

Just goes on for ages." (laughs)

I said, "Well it's kind of meant to."

- Do you think there is

a formula or a process in creating a song like this,

that's a song to have sex to.

- Well if there was a formula I guess we could

keep knocking them out, and we could have done

like fifteen of them or something.

But there's no formula really and there's

no way of planning it.

- Paul Morley said that "Moments" is one of the

best songs to have sex to.

- Yeah, I've never had sex to it, so I wouldn't know.

(laughs) Certainly not to

"Moments in Love".

- What song would you put up there with it?

In that category? - See the problem is,

you see, I work on music ten to twelve hours a day.

So-- - Silence.

- I tend to go and switch the radio off.

You know?

- It's like being at work.

- It's like (laughs)

being at work, yeah.

♫ ("Ignition (Remix)" by R. Kelly)

- In the digital music age, we all have

immediate access to any type of music.

♫ ("Brown Sugar" by D'Angelo)

I want to know when it comes to songs to have sex to,

what are we listening to, right now?

That's why I have come to Spotify

because they can track our listening habits.

I'm meeting Samantha, Spotify analyst

who can tell me who is listening to what

and when.

We spoke to Trevor Horn about "Moments in Love",

a track he did with Art of Noise.

I would be interested to know if you've got any

data on that, who listens to it, age group,

that kind of thing.

- Yeah so we looked into that.

It's actually a male skew, so slightly more

males listening to that track than females.

And the key demographic who are listening to it are

18 to 24 year olds. - Really?

- Yeah so a bit younger than you might expect, maybe

listening to that one.

- What about something like "Je T'aime"?

- What was really interesting about this track

is that streams actually increased three times

on Valentines Day!

So, love song, love playlist, Valentine's Day is

obviously the key time for that.

We've got a lot of different playlists for different

moods on the service.

One of those moods is romance.

And sex playlist is obviously an important part of that.

We've got, for example, pure seduction

which has 139,000 followers.

- Okay, can we have a look at that?

- Yeah! We can have a look. - Let me put my glasses on.

- We've got Late Night Love for example

- What is on that?

- Well the first song in there is a

D'Angelo track.

♫ ("One Mo'gin" by D'Angelo)

And then if we look at some of the others--

- That's quite interesting, that whole playlist is

pretty much kind of urban and R&B isn't it?

- Yeah. - Frank Ocean,

Jill Scott, Drake, The Weeknd

And do you think people are using those playlists

for what it says, what the title says?

- I recon so! I recon people are

less imaginative than you might think.

(laughs) And they're looking for

those playlists to seduce another person,

putting them on in the background, maybe not telling

the other person what the title of the playlist is but

- Yeah. - I do think it's being

used that way.

- [Narrator] If people are using crowd-sourced playlists

to set the mood, perhaps there really is some kind of

science to the art of musical seduction.

I've got some of my mates together in my local

to find out if they use playlists to get lucky.

- We, probably all of us, love albums

but I think you're more likely to hedge your bets

and put on a wee playlist.

- That depends if-

- I would always go for an album.

- How was it in 1998? - I wouldn't normally go,

yeah (laughs)

I would go to someone else's house and plug my phone in

and be like, we're going to listen to this now.

- No? - No.

- I would. (laughs)

- Can we play a game?

Get some paper, I want everyone to write down

a song that they associate with sex.

- [Narrator] I've known this lot for years.

But I've never asked them to tell me what songs

turn them on.

Alright, first thing is we've got to try and guess

who said this first, okay?

- Okay.

- Prince, "Most Beautiful Girl in the World".

- I would say, Steve!

- No. - Nick.

- Guilty! (group laughs)

- I think it's just a beautiful song,

I know it's kind of paying homage to women.

Which as a, young man fully devoid of sexual experiences,

you kind of think maybe if you pay homage to a woman

through a song, then that might lead to more.

And in this particular case it did.

So that worked quite well.

- Prince is sexy and dirty

- [Group] Yes. - All in one, romantic, dirty

sexy, all of those.

So he never falls too much into cliches.

- FKA Twigs, "Two Weeks".

- Will. - Nah!

- What I think about this song is like,

this particular moment when it was on,

often, it's kind of just like that awkward to have

music on when you have sex, but this was kind of

on at the moment and it was great.

- And for Nathan, AC/DC

Go on!

- "You Shook Me All Night Long"

(crowd exclaims, cheers)

I find guitars are, you know, sexy.

(crowd laughs) and women, just to clarify!

- Patti Smith, "Gloria"

- Was that you? - Yep.

(laughs)

And I don't know, it's the way she sings it

she's almost talking it to you, it's like a tease

there's something really kind of provocative about it

I think.

- The only song called "Gloria" I know goes,

(singing) Gloria! Gloria!

If anybody here has sex to that,

I'm leaving. (crowd laughs)

- So my mates have found out what my song to have sex

to is, but so far, all I find out is that the songs that

turn people on, are as varied as the people themselves.

♫ ("Gloria" by Patti Smith)

♫ "Love to love you, baby"

I want to journey, to find out what makes a song

a song to have sex to.

In the 1970s, a new musical genre emerged from the

nightclubs of New York.

♫ ("Love to Love You Baby" by Donna Summer)

Created by producers using electronic beats and

repetitive vocal hooks, this new style was

all about dancing.

The closest thing to having sex with your clothes on.

It was the birth of disco and its undisputed queen

was the late, great Donna Summer.

♫ ("I Feel Love" by Donna Summer)

- Donna Summer, "I Feel Love" was just so

sensual and so sexy, and makes you want to move.

- You get into it and you feel it.

It creates a mood and an environment that is sexy.

♫ "Ooooh, it's so good, it's so good..."

- Very sexy songs if you listen to them in the club

you've had one drink or two, then

you see someone that's good looking,

you think about it, you know?

- In this modern mating ritual, DJs are like shaman,

building the mood and orchestrating the highs and lows.

♫ ("Crazy in Love" by Beyonce & Jay-Z)

- You'll get guys coming up to you,

shaking your hand, dragging their girl with them,

you know it means a lot.

Okay, you've had a good time, that works for you.

You're off to enjoy the rest of your evening.

- When they hear it they know that they're meant

to react a certain way, and they do.

- If music can make us want sex, just by

pushing the right buttons,

I need to find out if it can push mine.

So I'm on my way to Medical School

to meet up with Dr. Harry Witchel and he's done

all types of research into the effects that

music has on people.

He's also written a book called "You Are What You Hear".

He's going to conduct a little experiment on me.

I'm not entirely sure what it involves but

I've had to give him some music that I'm into,

and I guess if I had a song to have sex to

it would be Patti Smith, "Gloria".

So that's one of the tracks I told him about.

So we'll see.

Harry is going to monitor my heartbeat and any changes

on my skin, which will show if I

get aroused.

- So if I put this in your lap

- Yeah.

- So what we're going to do is

I'm going to play a piece of music.

While that's going, you'll see some photographs

of men's faces, and those men's faces

may be attractive to you, they may not.

If you think he's sexy, that's the left button.

If you don't think he's sexy, that's the right button.

You press the button as soon as you feel that way.

So it's all good,

are we clear on that? - Yeah, yeah.

He's going to show me a series of photos of men.

But play different music to see how I react.

(sexy music)

That's a great picture.

Hi, Dave Grohl!

Yes!

- Okay, that's good.

Now let's talk a little bit about this here music.

- Ahhh!

Love this song.

I won't be massively surprised if

playing one of my favorite songs makes me more, open

to finding someone attractive.

♫ ("Bloodbuzz Ohio" by The National)

(laughs)

- What happened with this

set was that you had really strong arousal.

So your heart rate, which is normally resting at around

65 to 70, was up at around 90 for a little bit,

right at the beginning of the song,

because you were like "yeah, let's dance" or something.

You had fairly strong responses to Fassbinder

(laughs) That one had the most obvious

sexual responses.

- I'm so fickle - Well

(laughs) - Or predictable

(laughs) - I tell you.

Alright.

♫ ("You're Beautiful" by James Blunt)

(pretends snoring)

- Oh, dear.

Ugh.

- Okay (Turns off music)

- Ah, thank God for that.

- You had almost no sexual responses.

- Funny that. - There was

no real arousal, almost I would guess a kind of

anger response. (laughs)

Well there you go. - Yeah.

♫ ("Gloria" by Patti Smith)

- Now we're talking. "Gloria".

Now this one should get me going.

♫ "Gloria, G-l-o-r-i-a"...

- Your primary response was to the music itself.

- Yeah. - I didn't see all

that much in much of your response to photographs.

I would say that,

I don't think "Gloria" is really a song for

getting to know someone else.

Things where you responded strongly,

to the music in a potentially sexual way

would have been with The National, whereas

we had passion killers--

- James Blunt.

- What's wrong with James Blunt?

- Oh, come on. - He seems like

he's so popular in America. - I'm sure he's a

lovely-- - Everyone in America

loves him. - ...lovely man,

just that song.

- I'm sure you'll change your mind about it.

- I don't think I ever will.

(laughs)

That's something that will never change.

[Narrator] I'm really surprised "Gloria"

didn't get more of a reaction.

I think I need to dig a bit deeper

into the science behind songs to have sex to.

I'm off to meet scientist and author Zoe Cormier

who has very strong and fascinating views about

how and why music affects us sexually.

If there's one person who can help me answer

questions about the relationship between

sex and music, it's you, Zoe.

(laughs) You wrote a book on it.

Where did your interest in the relationship between

sex and music come from?

- Well I put myself through school

by bartending at a nightclub.

So I spent five years watching

other people get wasted

and try and hook up and

so just observing the ecology of the human species.

And there's no question that the relationship

between sex and music exists.

- One of the other things that I find fascinating

in your book is that you say that music has this

intense effect-- - Yeah

- Physically and mentally, on the brain,

on the human species.

- Yeah. There's a part of your brain

it's called the nucleus acumbinds,

it's right in the middle.

And if you were to have sex,

it would release dopamine,

serotonin, oxytocin- happy chemicals.

What's amazing is that they found out in 2005

that music produces the exact same thing.

Mathematics doesn't do that, language doesn't do that.

Music does that, and when you listen to Marvin Gaye,

you actually do have a release of sexy chemicals.

- What is it about music though?

Is it the beat, is it the tempo, is it the voice,

is the melody?

- They don't know yet.

It's entirely personal, and one of the reasons that we

don't know is because the science of

music and biology is very new.

So for a very long time, scientists were obsessed with

language and they thought that language was the thing

that demarcated us from animals.

And music was denigrated as a trivial pursuit.

So they've only really been only looking at

this for 15 years.

The scientists have discovered that

when you listen to music that you like,

all the neurons in your head pulse in synchrony.

And I don't mean that they fire at the same time,

I mean that they harmonize their firing, and they've

never seen this before.

- Another thing that you say in your book is that

music is one of the few things that connects

both sides of the brain.

What are the other things?

- Nothing. Only music, so

there's a bit in the middle of your head

is called the corpus callosum.

And music is the only thing that strengthens the

connections between the left and the right.

So when you listen to music and when you play music,

it uses every single part of your brain,

from the front to the back,

from the right to the left.

From the ancient structures to the very new structures

at the front, it even stimulates the brain stem

and that hence had a very ancient role that it plays

in our biology.

- If what Zoe tells me is true, then the power of music

to cause sexual impulses isn't just cultural

or even a matter of personal choice.

It's evolutionary, hard-wired into the way our

very brains have developed over millennia.

I'm not sure I've got time on this journey to go back

to the birth of mankind, but there are still some

very important areas where sex and music meet

that I do need to get to.

My mission to discover if there's some kind of

shared DNA between all songs to have sex to

has thrown up some pretty interesting results from

the role of philosophy, the power of seduction,

the importance of mood setting to our evolution.

And of course then there's the claim that music is the

only pursuit that links both sides of the human brain.

Sex and music go hand in hand across all genres.

But there is one musical tradition

that has been more strongly associated with seduction

than all others.

♫ "Try not to let you down

♫ But I guess I make mistakes"

- Black music culture seems to have a

special place in the story of songs to have sex to.

Legendary producer and musician Dennis Bovell

is one of British black music's influential figures,

and has worked with artists from Fela Kuti

and Madness to Marvin Gaye.

I'm going to meet him in his studio, where he's working

with his latest protege, Karmy.

(singing)

(R&B/soul music)

♫ What's my name, baby

♫ Come join me on this crazy ride

♫ Say my name, honey

♫ There's a place for you by my side

♫ What's my name, sugar

♫ I won't stop til I hear the noise

♫ Scream my name, darlin

♫ I won't stop til I hear your voice

- Yeah. - Beautiful!

- You know it is!

- Still making music and still finding great voices.

- Yeah I've always appreciated a good voice.

Coming from a family of vocalists and singers.

- [Voiceover] Dennis was also one of the creators of

Lover's Rock, one of the genres most associated with

sex and seduction.

"Silly Games", his 1979 hit for Janet Kay propelled

Lover's Rock into the mainsteam.

♫ ("Silly Games" by Janet Kay)

"Silly Games", it's timeless!

What is it about the female voice that you drawn?

- There wasn't a Shirley Bassey of reggae.

So I tried to kind of make a Shirley Bassey of reggae,

you know, someone that had quite a powerful voice.

(singing) We play hide and seek.

- What was the process for you when you

set out to make that song?

Because you talk about the start of the song

almost being like this kind of

mating call-type thing. - Yes.

The intro to that song was kind of a stand-off affair.

It was, girl-meets-boy, boy-meets-girl but they're not

really sure, and the boy doesn't want to

be slapped in the face

and the girl doesn't want to be knocked back.

So the girl has the brazenness to say, look

I can see that you're shy, so,

let's stop playing this silly game.

♫ ("Silly Games" by Janet Kay)

In the process of teaching her the song,

when I hit the note- (sings high note)

she looked at me in amazement, was like,

"you can sing that note?"

I go, "that's what I want you to sing!

Said "give me that microphone".

(laughs) The rest is history!

(singing) "To play, your", everything, "game"

Alright.

All the way through the song, from the intro

to the end of the song, she's almost having an orgasm.

- Did you tell Janet all this,

when you wrote the song? - Oh no!

(laughs)

- Barry White is one of those names that

pops off every time you mention songs to have sex to.

When you look at this list of singers,

I mean most of them are black singers.

Is that instinctive? Is that something that is in the genes?

- I think they're the only ones that would dare.

(laughs)

Because I mean, James Brown, quite earlier on

he went, "get up! I feel like a sex machine".

You know it was like, wow that's a bit risque.

And then, Marvin Gaye came along, and

cleaned up the whole act and suddenly,

you had sex again and it was "Sexual Healing" so

it come from the obscene to being medicine.

♫ ("Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye)

- You know, I started this journey with an open mind,

and look where I've ended up.

With Marvin Gaye and Barry White.

- "Sexual Healing" is, I can't really explain it

to be honest.

I think it's the beat and

you know those songs that just, do it for you but

there's no words to describe why.

That's the song.

- He was a sex idol.

Men want to be him, women want to be with him.

You know, so (laughs).

- Marvin Gaye is, actually, kind of timeless.

It's just that, ooh, that whole thing.

It's sexy. Marvin Gaye, Barry White,

all those sorts of things.

I don't think there's anything wrong with them,

I think they're sexy songs.

♫ ("Can't Get Enough of Your Love" by Barry White)

- His voice has something.

His voice is incredibly sexy.

Even as a man I can say that his voice was sexy.

And a woman would agree 100 percent.

- I mean I've always said my ideal threesome

is Tom Jones and Barry White.

- When it comes to songs to have sex to,

there's something very powerful about those

strong Black male voices.

And who better to put that in context than my

old mate, and Britain's best-known R&B DJ,

Trevor Nelson.

- For me when you talk about classic music,

Isley Brothers, I mean look at these guys.

Look at them. - Oh man!

- Rose in his hand, it's so cliche

- But look at the titles of the tracks,

"I Need Your Body", "Between the Sheets",

"Let's Make Love Tonight".

- Stop there, you don't need to go

I don't even get to 2

I don't touch side two, should we hear this?

(laughs)

(moves record backwards)

This is it for me.

♫ ("Between the Sheets" by Isley Brothers)

This tune, alright?

It's so simple.

But it's so Isleys.

♫ "Hey girl, ain't no mystery"

Ah!

- Back in the room, back in the room.

It's no coincidence that so many of these artists

in these songs are black artists.

- It's no coincidence.

You know, the blues, we know about the blues

comes out of the fact that the black race in America

were always the bottom run.

And one thing that had some sort of parody was sex.

You know you can be the poorest person on the planet

but you can have the best sex in the world,

you can have much better sex than

the guy who runs Microsoft!

And when you're singing about sex,

it's easy and it's about meaning it!

And I think that's why it's so convincing

and I think that's why it's so seductive

and obviously that incredible natural voice

that black people tend to possess.

What about this, this is Marvin Gaye, come on.

I'm sure everyone's spoken about him on this show

already, right?

About how important he is.

- But how important is he to you?

- Well, I think he's less cheesy than Barry White.

Barry White is your baby-making God.

But this guy, I played him at my first ever gig.

And that was a school disco.

My last song of the night

was this, and my friends were all dancing the

girls apart from me.

♫ ("Let's Get it On" by Marvin Gaye)

- Listen to this.

(reading) I can't see anything wrong with

sex between consenting anybodies.

I think we make far too much of it, after all,

one's genitals are just one important part of the

magnificent human body.

I have no argument with the essential part

they play in the reproduction of the species.

However, the reproductive process has been

assured by the pleasure both parties receive

when they engage in it."

- And that's the power of music.

♫ "Let's get it on"

(reading) - "I hope the music that I

present here makes you lucky." Woo-hoo!

- For forty-odd years, he's not wrong.

- It's really human, this idea of having sex to music.

- What's more beautiful than

two people sharing the same pleasure.

- Music has that kind of power, you know?

- It puts the right sort of beats into your body.

♫ "I love you"

- I started with a simple question:

why are some songs great songs to have sex to?

But simple questions don't always have simple answers.

It's down to personal taste, amongst many other factors.

But from all the songs I've encountered on this journey,

here's what might make the top ten songs to have sex to:

♫ ("Gloria" by Patti Smith)

♫ ("Je T'aime" by Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg)

Before "Je T'aime", songs spoke about

sex in code and double-entendre.

But there was no doubting what these two were talking about.

♫ ("Sexy Boy" by Air)

Air's blissed-out track for the chill-out generation

may well have been responsible for the mini-population boom

at the turn of the millennium.

♫ ("Love to Love You Baby" by Donna Summer)

Unlike most of the sex people had to it,

"Love to Love You Baby" lasted

16 minutes.

♫ "Love to love you baby" (moaning)

♫ ("Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood)

The amazing "Relax" became a rallying cry for a

newly-defiant gay movement in the 1980s.

♫ ("Moments in Love" by Art of Noise)

As much an artistic experiment as it was a song,

"Moments in Love" was a crossover hit, as well

as a bedroom classic.

♫ ("Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye)

Marvin Gaye had a late career comeback with one of the

overtly sexual songs ever released.

♫ ("Silly Games" by Janet Kay)

In the otherwise male-dominated reggae world,

"Silly Games" put the sisters on top.

♫ ("Between the Sheets" by Isley Brothers)

This timeless track is a seduction staple,

relied on for generations to set the mood

in the bedroom.

♫ "Makin' love, between the sheets"

♫ ("Let's Get it On" by Marvin Gaye)

And we climax with the only man allowed in twice.

This was a huge hit for Marvin, and the tune that would

top most people's lists of songs to have sex to.

♫ Woo

♫ Let's get it on

♫ Ahh, baby

♫ Let's get it on

♫ Let's love, baby

♫ Let's get it on

♫ Sugar, let's get it on