"Melody" (Serge Gainsbourg)

French pop artist Serge Gainsbourg was never a stranger to controversy or pushing buttons.  Case in point: his steamy 1969 single "Je t'aime...moi non plus" with his then-girlfriend, British actress Jane Birkin, which replicated a conversation between lovers in the middle of getting it on, complete with audio vérité moans to ratchet up the realism.  (In the European countries where the single wasn't banned outright, it was a massive hit.)
Which brings us to the song at hand: "Melody" off the 1969 concept album Histoire de Melody Nelson.  In the album's brief 7-song cycle, Gainsbourg tells the story of a questionable love affair with a 15-year-old expat named Melody Nelson.  In "Melody," the story begins with Gainsbourg tooling around in his Rolls Royce at night, mired in his own thoughts, when he accidentally collides with Melody as she's riding her bicycle.  He rescues her and a steamy affair ensues, with Gainsbourg creepily declaring at the end of the track, Melody Nelson a les cheveux rouges / Et c'est leur couleur naturelle (translated: Melody Nelson is a natural redhead).
I'll say this: Gainsbourg's dirtbag proclivities leave me cold.  And the Lolita-esque story doesn't exactly grab me.  But it's his singular, literary approach to telling that story and the edgy, cinematic backing track, which combines session bassist Herbie Flowers's funky, inventive bassline with hard rock guitar and lush orchestral strings, that sell me on the song "Melody" and the album as a whole.
Even if you don't speak a word of French and are utterly turned off by the chain-smoking, dirty old man narrating the song, "Melody" still can be appreciated as a sonically rich, intoxicating piece of early 70s French pop art.