Réveil can mean both 'waking' (the act of waking up) and 'alarm clock'. It's a common word, but its repeated use in this song, especially in the phrase "veillera son réveil" (will watch over her waking) and "lui manque au réveil" (misses him upon waking), gives it a tender and intimate quality.
In the context of the song, it highlights the narrator's longing and jealousy, as he imagines someone else being present for these intimate, vulnerable moments of waking up. It's a subtle yet powerful word that evokes a sense of closeness and emotional connection.
Beau paints a midnight movie where two strangers sit on opposite sides of the same heartache. Julien Doré tells the story of a man slumped on a sidewalk, phone in hand, whispering a voicemail he knows she will hear but never answer. Across town, Joseph Kamel slips into the voice of a woman staring blankly at her coffee, because the buzz of someone else’s message just lit up her face. Both narrators are spectators of love they no longer own: he envies the man who will wake up beside her, she longs for the boy who isn’t there. The repeated chorus, “Si tu savais comme c’est beau” (“If you only knew how beautiful it is”), turns the knife—beauty here is the shimmering illusion of what might have been.
Under the gentle pop-folk melody, the lyrics explore that curious space where jealousy, nostalgia, and admiration blend. Their parallel monologues reveal how easy it is to romanticize the love that belongs to someone else, mistaking distance for perfection. By the end, the shared refrain becomes a sigh: the heart has knelt, promises have spilled, and what’s left for each of them is the aching spectacle of beauty they can observe but never touch.