Batten down the tea-cups, here comes Edith

As is often my wont, I fell to musing about music this morning. Or rather, I was pushed; someone at France Culture unchained Edith Piaf. So there is a role on radio for the hard-of-hearing, or merely those with a fetish for pink leather bulletproof ear-muffs.

Far be it from me to mock the afflicted; I get the odd touch of tinnitus myself, either from playing electric guitar or driving a circular saw, should you be able to tell the difference.

There's certainly no mistaking that compulsive vibrato like an express train on steroids with the DTs; a sure sign that The Little Sparrow Has Landed. Ella Fitzgerald could shatter a wineglass with the sheer purity of her voice. In dear old Edith's case, large plate glass windows simply surrender before the commencement of hostilities; citing name, rank and number in accordance with the Geneva Convention.

I suppose it must be high treason to talk about one of France's finest like this. But I have to admit that I just don't get what Edith Piaf is about. It's all so full-on. I once listened to her greatest hits CD. Twenty whole tracks - home James, and beat the horses into two submissions and a knockout before we start. What I really enjoyed was the wonderful, ethereal, deliciously dead silence when at last she stopped . . .

But we all have music that we don't get. Take Prog Rock, bands like Yes and Genesis; some bloke in a funny hat going on about Hogweeds and Epping Forest. I mean to say, have you ever seen a forest epping? What does it do when it epps? Probably it's just a question of mulch.

Needless to say, I never got Prog Rock either. But what about French Prog Rock? Le cerveau vraiment bogule . . . Congratulations, you have just won a copy of the dreaded Gong Double Live; my official The Most Boring Album Ever In The World Ever for the last 27 years, and counting.

And even now, there's no escape. The French absolutely adore some English guy called Feel Coleen. Most pop stations only possess about four records, three of which are always by Feel Coleen. I have come to the unavoidable conclusion that this must in fact be the bald guy who used to play drums for Genesis . . .

But don't get the idea that I've got a downer on French music. I adore Debussy and Ravel and it was well worth catching Stephane Grappelli live, even if he was about 106 at the time. And then there's our local boy Claude Nougaro, whose best songs I'm gradually learning to play so that girlfriend Claire can sing them. He's got a lovely touch with the lyrics, like in his signature tune Toulouse, talking about the rather dodgy quartier that he grew up in, "where even the grannies love a punch-up". Funny, poignant; great words.

It's a shame as well that Renaud's Miss Maggie isn't better known to us anglais. It is, of course, about La Femme en Fer. It goes on for four verses or so, explaining how the singer loves all the women in the world, even fat, ugly, old slappeuses, because they're not either warmongers or idiot football fans like men. It's just that each verse ends "except Madame Thatcher", or words to that effect . . .

Mind you, I was discussing this with Claire the other day; we simply never got to hear any French bands in England. The only French records I could recall were Vanessa Paradis's first hit Joe Le Taxi and Plastique Bertrand's Ca plane pour moi. Of course, yer man Bertrand (or do you call him Plastique?) turns out to be Belgian, rather like Johnny Hallyday when he's having a row with the taxman.

Well, it could be worse; France's most famous singers may be Belgian, but all the most famous Belgians are fictitious; Hercules Poirot and Tintin. Tonnerre de Brest! C'est un coup de Trafalgar!*

*Usually translated, very loosely indeed, as Blistering barnacles! etc. (See Haddock, Captain, swearing, for the use of). Un coup de Trafalgar dates from the battle naturally, and to this day denotes a cunning or sneaky trick, the French obviously having felt that it was unfair that they lost.