Jukebox Junior

Perhaps not an ideal track to play to a two-year-old, but Junior appeared to be more embarrassed at me trying to whistle along to the organ than anything else. ‘Je T’Aime…’ isn’t brilliant, but it has a good groove and is, frankly, hilarious. What a lecherous old goat Serge was, and isn’t it splendid that this record is so tied up with its pastiches it’s become a parody of itself?

What more can we say? Some trivia: Fontana got cold feet in the less-permissive-than-reported late ‘60s and dropped the Birkin/Gainsbourg original, only to see it vault to the top of the charts on the minor Major Minor label; Birkin’s wispy voice lives on in daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg, who released a very fine solo album in 2006, aided and abetted by Jarvis Cocker and Air; Misty Oldland’s ‘A Fair Affair’ made, well, fair use of the rhythm track to shape a winning little number in 1994. It’s a gossamer-thin legacy, as quaint as the song seems now.