Blêmes is a poetic adjective meaning "pale" or "wan," often used to describe a complexion lacking color due to illness or fear. It’s an evocative and uncommon word that you won't hear in everyday conversation.
In the song, Pomme sings, "C'en est assez des amours blêmes" (I've had enough of pale loves). She uses this word metaphorically to describe relationships that are lifeless, passionless, and faded. This beautiful, melancholic imagery perfectly captures the feeling of being tired of insincere or empty love stories.
Have you ever looked back at an old romance and wondered if the other person was ever taking it seriously, or just showing off? In "À Peu Près" ("Roughly" or "More or Less"), French artist Pomme sifts through the leftovers of an intense relationship. Her ex was laying it on thick: whispering poems, promising brighter skies, and dropping literary references left and right. She recalls, "Tu m'as cité Rimbaud Verlaine" ("You quoted Rimbaud and Verlaine to me"), calling out this lover for pulling lines from Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine—two famous French poets whose real-life romance was notoriously messy and intense. It is a bit pretentious, honestly, tossing out "je t'aime" ("I love you") like loose wishes into the air while secretly burning the dice ("jeté les dés au feu") before giving the relationship a real chance.
Yet, despite the dramatic fallout, she is not bitter enough to trash the whole thing. She calls their past what it was: "C'était de l'or, tu sais" ("It was gold, you know"). At the same time, she admits she is exhausted by "amours blêmes" ("pale loves") and clichés that have worn out all her words. What makes this track hit so hard is the fragile, stubborn promise in the chorus: "Si je m'en sors à peu près / Ne t'en fais pas qu'un jour ou l'autre je te retrouverais" ("If I make it through, more or less / Don't worry, one day or another I will find you again"). She does not promise she will be fully healed, whole, or flawless. Just that if she manages to survive the heartbreak "à peu près"—in one battered piece—she will track them down.
Pomme is the stage name of Claire Pommet, a singer and songwriter born in 1996 near Lyon, France. She began solfège lessons at six and sang in a children's choir before turning to guitar, drawing early on chanson artists like Michel Polnareff that her father played around the house. She played her first Paris show at La Boule Noire in 2017, the same year she released her debut album, À peu près, which reached the French charts.
Her second album, Les failles, came out in 2019 and gave her a French top ten album. She has won two Victoires de la Musique, in 2020 and 2021, and followed with the albums Consolation, En cavale, and Saisons. In 2024 she recorded music with Stromae for Netflix's animated series Arcane. She married Quebecois singer Safia Nolin in 2022, after the two first met and dated back in 2016.