Serge: his life and t'aimes

And that Piaf woman. Cuh. Don't talk to me about the Little Sparrow . . . the Squawking Buzzard, more like. Maybe it's because pithy and punchy Anglophile pop will always struggle to circumvent the throaty nature of French-language pronunciation. Perhaps it's a matter of differing socio-cultural tastes.

Right enough, France has recently sent us a couple of intriguing electro-pop dance merchants in Daft Punk and Air, but neither of them is what you'd truly call ground-breakingly original songsmiths. Aye, if you ask me - which you haven't, but I'll tell you anyway - France's biggest contribution to twentieth-century pop has been those glutinous scat-babbling doyens of the kitsch-easy-listening movement, Les Swingle Singers. Pop poop de France, j'accuse!

Thankfully, Duglas Stewart has decided to effect a riposte to such xenophobic diatribes. For the leader of Bellshill's masters of melodic pop whimsy, the BMX Bandits, has been staging a year-long campaign for wider British recognition for one of France's most unjustly-undervalued songwriters, a campaign which continues tonight in the form of a celebratory live performance aboard Glasgow's Renfrew Ferry.

Je t'aime Gainsbourg is the name of the show. Serge Gainsbourg is the songwriter to whom homage will be paid by native popsters, including Teenage Fanclub's Norman Blake; sundry members of Belle And Sebastian; Chris Thomson, of the Bathers; jazz free-thinker Bill Wells, and Radio Scotland broadcaster Peter Easton, all backed by a house band led by chief Pearlfisher Davie Scott.

The show's title comes from Gainsbourg's biggest hit, Je t'aime Moi Non Plus, the slow smoulderer which he performed in 1969 with his amour of the time, Jane Birkin. ''Performed'' may be an apt word, the single featuring so many orgasmic gasps and whimpers that straitlaced Radio 1 chiefs banned it from the airwaves.

''I think it's a great record, but it's also responsible for the narrow view that we outside France have of Gainsbourg,'' says Stewart.

''I spoke to Jane Birkin last year before we staged the first of the three Je t'aime Gainsbourg shows we've so far done. She told me that shortly after Gainsbourg's death in 1991 she was phoned by a British tabloid journalist who asked: 'Did you and Serge make any other dirty records?'

''In fact, Serge Gainsbourg wrote more than 500 songs, not solely for himself, but for a wide range of artists - everyone from Francoise Hardy to Marianne Faithfull, Juliette Greco, Petula Clark, Dionne Warwick, and Brigitte Bardot - and in a huge variety of idioms. At the age of 50, for example, he did a reggae LP with reggae heavyweights Sly and Robbie, including a reggae version of La Marseillaise which led racists to threaten his life.

''He wrote jazz tunes, African-influenced songs, bubble-gum pop. He wrote an up-front rocker called Harley Davidson. He wrote tender ballads.''

Gainsbourg was, in addition, responsible for a throwaway Eurovision-winning song, Poupee de Cire, Poupee de Son, sung by a singer renamed France Gall for the event. Typically, given Gainsbourg's playful yet outspoken nature, the latter song was a dig at the notion of a manufactured song being sung by a manufactured singer.

''In short, Gainsbourg isn't just the author of smutty novelty ditties. As a measure of his standing, his funeral brought Paris to a standstill, being attended by French notables from all walks of life, Mitterrand, Chirac, Catherine Deneuve, Yves St Laurent.''

As well as live music, Je t'aime Gainsbourg will feature the screening of a short TV film, made in 1992, putting Gainsbourg in his wider cultural context: that of a born iconoclast, a man prone to the public utterance of deliberately shocking statements, usually on prime-time French TV chat shows. In this regard, one wonders whether Whitney Houston has yet recovered from Serge's urgent and graphic declaration - on the French equivalent of Wogan - for carnal communion with her.

''I also remember an interviewer clumsily asking him whether the sexual noises on Je t'aime were for real. He replied that if they had been for real, Je t'aime wouldn't have been a single, it would have been a long-playing album.

''He wrote a song called Sex Shop, and there was another one he wrote for France Gall, who at the time had this image as a virginal teenager. The song was about sucking a lollipop. Or it wasn't, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. On one level, it's really a childish thing to have done - but if you listen to the song, you can't help but giggle at the naughtiness of it.''

STEWART adds: ''Despite being of Polish-Jewish stock, which meant he had to hide during the German occupation of France, Gainsbourg wrote a tasteless concept album about the Third Reich called Nazi Rock. And after having been told by doctors that his drinking and smoking were killing him, he went on TV and flushed a little puppet of himself down a toilet.

''For me, Gainsbourg put on this boisterous, blustering, lewd front to cover his shyness and sensitivity. Nevertheless, I can't help but admire him for his persistent lack of any fear of failure, his willingness to try new forms of music, to avoid repeating himself.

''Above all, I like the fact that Serge Gainsbourg songs don't sound like anything else before or since. I'm a big fan of Brian Wilson, for whom Davie Scott and I assembled the show Smiles And Good Vibes, but whereas you can listen to the Beach Boys, the Byrds, and the Beatles and know that they were taking ideas and reference points from each other, with Serge Gainsbourg everything comes from his own unique vision.

''He took from other musical forms, but he seemed to influence other French artists rather than vice versa. His music has a very separate sound, a singular sonic quality.''

Or in other words: Vive la difference! Vive le Gainsbourg!

n Fall in love with Serge's ouevre tonight before the show is finally laid to rest during the summer on the Edinburgh Fringe, as part of the Flux season of musical performance.