It was a song that was rarely heard and often discussed in my schooldays — Je t’aime (Moi Non Plus). The BBC banned it, something it did only when a record was too rude (Je t’aime, Max Romeo’s Wet Dream) or too political (the Sex Pistols’ wilder moments). Sex and anarchy : Seventies Britain was having none of it. Everyone knew Je t’Aime was by that saucy actress Jane Birkin. Oh, and some French bloke who made a few Gallic grunts.

It has taken a mighty long time for Serge Gainsbourg to get the recognition in Britain that he deserved — but then sex and anarchy, for him, were twin guiding forces. Je t’Aime was a No 1 in 1969, and still his name never registered with John Bull. I remember being in Paris when he died in 1991, at the age of 62, and it felt as if the whole country was in mourning. My girlfriend’s mother couldn’t stop crying.

President Mitterrand made a statement to the nation. At the time Gainsbourg was best known in Britain for telling Whitney Houston “I want to f*** you” on live TV.

He first appeared as a chansonnier at the end of the Fifties. Even then his songs could be dark and sly (Le Poinçonneur des Lilas was about a ticket collector’s soul-destroying life), or melodically rich and moving (La Chanson de Prévert). Still, for darkness and raw emotion, Brel beat him hands down. It was when he invented his chain-smoking, hard-drinking alter ego “ Gainsbarre” that things got really interesting.

He won the 1965 Eurovision with a song he wrote for France Gall (Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son) that lampooned the whole pop process. Then he started dating Brigitte Bardot. His songs had been mildly salacious before, but BB inspired Gainsbourg to new heights of screwball abandon, starting with Je t’aime. Their original duet remained unreleased until the Nineties, by which time the public could just about handle it. On an unstoppable run until the mid-Seventies he created the most erotically charged pop yet made, peaking with the Melody Nelson album in 1971.

By the 1980s he was a professional irritant — he had begun turning from roguish lothario to oafish drunk. On occasion he could still offend and thrill in equal measure, as with his reggae version of La Marseillaise. While the Beastie Boys and Jesus and Mary Chain were ruffling tabloid feathers, across the Channel Gainsbourg made Lemon Incest, a duet with his daughter Charlotte, which cut them both to ribbons.

His death meant an end to awkward attempts at rap, such as You’re Under Arrest, and a new focus on his golden period. This made his career easier to assimilate in Britain and America. Pretty soon the likes of Beck, Portishead, and David Holmes were mentioning his name whenever they had the chance.

Now there’s Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited, a tribute album put together by the veteran French pop mag Les Inrockuptibles. It certainly dazzles with its A-list contributors: Michael Stipe, Jarvis Cocker, Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos. But every song has been translated into English. The special sauce that flavoured his songs can’t be translated directly — the onomatopoeia, cadences and wild wordplay are entirely lost.

No matter. Later this year Charlotte Gainsbourg’s new album, with help from Jarvis Cocker, will be released, and the Manchester DJ Andy Votel has plans to re-create the Melody Nelson album live with the original arranger, Jean-Claude Vannier.

It could be argued that all French pop, from Etienne Daho to Air to Tahiti 80, is balanced on the fulcrum of Gainsbourg and Bardot’s Bonnie and Clyde: dark, sexual and powerful. Gainsbourg never learnt to speak English beyond obscenities. Forget the translations and listen to Bonnie and Clyde: it’s the best tribute you could pay him.

Marianne Faithfull

I met Serge Gainsbourg in the early or mid-1960s at the beginning of my career. This was the time of Salut les Copains (French Sixties equivalent of Smash Hits). He was very cool, fascinating. I was 17: he was the kind of calm, refined and cultivated individual that left a strong impression on a young girl like me. We never had a sexual relationship. I have the feeling that a sexual relationship with Serge was perhaps the only way to get to know him truly . . .

He still inspires me a great deal. The same is true for a great many artists. All the ones I know, British or American, know everything about Serge Gainsbourg. Anyone who wants to make music needs to get to know his work; it's an obligation.

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