"Avant que l'ombre..." (English: "Before the Shadow...") is a song recorded by the French artist Mylène Farmer in a studio version in 2005 and in a live version at the time of her 2006 concerts at Bercy (Paris). It was the first single from her fourth live album, Avant que l'ombre... à Bercy, and was released on 26 November 2006. It achieved a moderate success in terms of sales, although it reached the top ten in France.

Many Internet sites announced "Déshabillez-moi" as the first single from the live album, but "Avant que l'ombre... (live)" was finally chosen. On 20 October, Jeune Reims was the first French radio to broadcast the song. Among the promotional media sent to radio stations, the MP3 contained an unreleased remix of the song "L'amour n'est rien...", the fourth single from the album Avant que l'ombre....

"Avant que l'ombre..." is the most mystical song of the album of the same name, but also one in which the text is easier to understand. Speaking to Jesus Christ, the singer evokes her fear of death while affirming that the life has nevertheless allowed her to know love. This slow song ends with a long musical bridge "that looks like a final judgement". The music is sweet and the vocals symbolize screams of pain. According to author Erwan Chuberre, when the album was aired for the first time on 28 March 2005, "Avant que l'ombre..." was regarded as the best song of the album.

Directed by François Hanss, the music video was shot at one of her concerts in January 2006, and lasts over seven minutes as it contains all the ending musical bridge played while Farmer left the stage. The commercial ads were broadcast on radio station NRJ to announce the release of the video on M6 on 14 November 2006. However, NRJ 12 was finally the first channel to broadcast it earlier in the morning. As the video was rather long, the television channels quickly proposed a shorter version of the video. According to Jukebox magazine, the video enjoyed a cutting edge production, but some shots arrangements are somewhat clever, as they alternately show the singer with and without a microphone in hand.

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