Decamping to Nashville for 2 months of intensive writing the girl group shared their vision for a song that summed up their artistic ennui, and their view that life, an enchanting and fleeting dance, contained infinitesimal nuances that we could rarely grasp. The final days of the music industry’s irresponsible overspending and largesse saw the band record one line of vocal for each verse, then flying in a private jet to the different recording studios, rotating until the recording was finished. This company procures the screams (and subsequently laughter) of children to create energy for an entire city.

The song features many cheeky double entendres; the band commented in 2013 that "it went over children's heads, but the parents got the innuendos. In any case, open-minded programmers who have had success with Britney Spears or Cleopatra should certainly give this a meaningful spin and let their audiences have a chance to catch on to the magic of this fearless track.The music video for the song was directed by Alison Murray, who later also directed the UK video for " Rollercoaster". C’est La Vie was released as a single on the 25th of May in 1998 but seeds were sown 12 months earlier as the girl group made up of Sinead, Keavy, Edele and Lindsay were paired with a songwriting team by their label.

The girls then tie the boy to a tree and the dog chases toward him before he is bombarded with lipstick kiss marks all over his face.

The boy is freed from the tree and the girls hose him with water and begin performing an Irish reel before lying back down in the field where they began. The accompanying music video for the song features the four girls dancing around a lush green field full of bright flowers with a puppy as they playfully tease a teenage boy.