for its "ambitious use of the strings," used to reflect the tension expressed in its lyrics. Regarding the track, 50thirdand3rd considered that: "The intensity of the string arrangement reflects both the inner tension and desire, the bass echoes the throbbing beat of a heart in heat, but what really makes this song is Françoise Hardy's wordless vocalizations." "Viens" is followed by the title track, which "[establishes] the album's elegant dreamlike mood." Hardy's lyrics deal with uncertainty, reflecting on the "distance that develops between two people despite one's best efforts." Expressing a sense of misfortune, and the inability to remedy it, she sings: "I don't know why I stay in a sea that makes me drown/I don't know why I stay in air that will get me choked/You're the blood of my wound, you're the fire of my burns/You're my question without an answer, my mute cry and my silence." These last lines stress the narrator's "existential isolation". Her phrasing is much more flexible than in her previous pop songs, as she "[elongates] and [spaces] syllables behind and ahead of the beat", while Tuca's offbeat guitar is "syncopated to the natural flow of emotion instead of paying strict attention to the bars or the time signature." Hardy chose to abandon the lyrics for "Chanson d'O" ("Song of O"), opting for what have been described as "ecstatic vocalizations", including "sighs, growls and groans of pleasure." The song is considered a reference to Histoire d'O, an erotic novel published in 1954 that dealt with female submission. "Le martien" ("The Martian") has a "dreamy" and surreal atmosphere, with an "otherworldly" background created through breaths and traditional instruments. The lyrics for the song are about a Martian who descends from the sky to ask for the hand of the narrator. Written by Hardy, the lyrics of "Mer" ("Sea") concern suicide in a gentle manner, as she intones: "I would love to fall asleep in the sea—magical, original, in its essential rhythm. I would love the sea to take me back to be reborn—elsewhere than inside my head, somewhere other than the earth, where without my love I can do nothing." The song's string arrangements imitate the tide of the sea, "both menacing and welcoming", like the possibility of killing oneself. Similarly to "Viens", the lyrics on "Oui, je dis adieu" ("Yes, I Say Goodbye") describe the rupture of a couple, as Hardy sings: "Your show