"Comme j'ai mal" (English: "How Much I Suffer") is a 1995 song recorded by French singer-songwriter Mylène Farmer. Fourth single from her fourth album Anamorphosée, it was released on 1 July 1996. It was a relative failure: indeed, it failed to reach the top ten in France and was the least-selling single from the album.

In June 1996, Farmer continued her concert tour through France that she had begun on 25 May, while her fourth studio album Anamorphosée was a success despite a lack of promotion. However, on 15 June, the singer fell at her concert in Lyon and broke her wrist, forcing her to stop her tour. To make her fans wait, the release of "Comme j'ai mal", initially scheduled for August, was delayed to July, although no music video was shot then. The three official remixes available on the various formats were produced by Laurent Boutonnat and Bertrand Châtenet. As the previous single "California", a CD maxi was released in Germany. The song was later included in the studio version on the 2001 best of album Les Mots.

Journalist Benoît Cachin said "Comme j'ai mal" seems to be as "a confession and may be related to the texts of "Ainsi soit je..." and "Laisse le vent emporter tout"". Farmer evokes "her pain of living that prevents her from enjoying life"; she also talks about her lucidity and disillusionment and "that leads her to disconnect both physically and psychologically from the real world for a better world that belongs to her". Author Erwan Chuberre considered that with this song, Farmer keeps up with lyrics "evoking death and the escape from reality". According to psychologist Hugues Royer, the song contains "the sign of a hope of change" of the malaise from childhood, "of a travel for the mind and the body".

The music video was produced by Marcus Nispel, who had previously directed the ones for "XXL" and "L'Instant X", and later for "Souviens-toi du jour". Nispel also composed the screenplay alongside Farmer, and this video was generally regarded as his best. A Requiem Publishing production, the video was filmed in Los Angeles for two days in August 1996 with a budget of about 80,000 euros. It was said that the video was produced twice, as the scenery of the first one was ransacked by panthers that were originally included in the video. Only few photographs were taken by the only photographer who attended the shooting, Jeff Dahlgren, who also played in the 1992 film Giorgino. The costumes, make up and hairstyles required several hours of preparation. Farmer was deeply involved in the creation of the butterfly costume which holds itself through an iron wire and pins, and Farmer deemed it a masterpiece.

...
Wikipedia