This article offers a close reading of three twentieth century french chansons: ‘La mer’ by Charles Trenet, ‘Ta Katie t’a quitté’ and ‘Le tube de toilette’ by the far less known Boby Lapointe. The analyses clearly show the predominance of the ‘poetic function’ (Jakobson) in these texts. Thus, they may be considered as steps toward the Mallarmé idea of ‘poésie pure’, although realized in a more popular genre, full of humour and even nonsense.