“There is a mistake that we’ve been making for a while, to believe that whales don’t cry,” sings Pomme in the new music video for her song, “À pert de vue” (“Out of Sight”).
The 24-year-old chanson-folk pop singer is known as an eco-warrior from previous songs like “Les séquoias,” but she’s stepping into more serious territory here. “À pert de vue” was released in February, with an album cover that simply read: “Attention aux belugas” (“Watch out for belugas”). The music video features a close-up on the artist’s face, which zooms out slowly over the course of three and a half minutes to reveal that she is lying on top of a whale. Her soft, clear voice is chilling as she sings: “How can I speak about this without my voice cracking? How can I tell you these things, the damage we cause?”
In an accompanying Instagram post, Pomme writes: “How will the song help the St. Lawrence belugas? One of the great challenges of the St. Lawrence belugas is to get along in such a noisy world. To reduce its impact while continuing its essential work, GREMM wants to acquire a boat that is as quiet and clean as possible. Donations will therefore go towards the fundraising campaign for the purchase of this new boat. A portion of the funds will also be used to continue their efforts to raise awareness of the fascinating beluga whales.” GREMM, the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals, is based in Canada.
