Cinq Ou Six Années is Jeanne Cherhal’s heartfelt time-machine back to the messy magic of late adolescence. With vivid snapshots of long hair at seventeen, endless high-school corridors, secret love letters, and Sunday afternoons that seem to last forever, the song paints the roller-coaster emotions of a teenager who feels both bored to tears and fiercely alive. The recurring line "cinq ou six années de presque rien" ("five or six years of almost nothing") highlights how those seemingly empty years were actually charged with restlessness, desire, and the sense that anything could happen at dawn.
Cherhal sings from a place of wistful nostalgia, confessing that she was "l’argile et le feu mélangé" – soft clay and burning fire at the same time. Through her poetic flashbacks we relive the awkward dances of growing up: sneaking hands through hair, scrawling forbidden words on walls, hiding freezing fingers inside sleeves, and imagining love so dramatic someone might die for it. It is a celebration of youthful angst that reminds us how those almost nothing years quietly shape whoever we grow into.