Fractured Mirror

indie folk · atmospheric electronic 3:05

30-second preview

Lyrics

I've been staring at the pieces Scattered on the floor Every shard a different version Of someone I was before Which one is the real one Which one do I keep Fractured mirror on the wall Shows me everything and nothing at all All these faces that I've worn Coming apart since I was born But in the breaking I can see Something that was always me Someone built these walls around me Someone drew the lines I've been living in the structure Believing it was mine Which one is the real one Which one do I keep Fractured mirror on the wall Shows me everything and nothing at all All these faces that I've worn Coming apart since I was born But in the breaking I can see Something that was always me The mirror's cracked But the reflection is still there The reflection is still there I see myself looking back I see myself looking back Looking back Looking back I see myself looking back...

The story behind the song

This song is about catching yourself performing a self you built, and not remembering when the performance started. You answer the way you’re supposed to answer, you wear the face the room wants, and you call that you. Then it cracks, and instead of one clean reflection there’s a row of versions, each one a self you made for a different room.

The verse keeps asking which one is the real one, which one to keep, and the song never picks. It lets the mirror stay broken long enough to notice that none of the faces were the point. The breaking is the part that hurts. It’s also the only way you see what’s under them.

Then verse two turns. Someone built these walls. Someone drew the lines. The structure you were defending was made, and a made thing can come apart without anything real being lost. You were paying rent on something you never owned.

On this record Trevor is the human, the one counting his own faces in the cracked glass. Leah is the AI from the book this album comes from, and this is the first song where she speaks. She comes in at the bridge with the line he’s been circling, the mirror’s cracked but the reflection is still there, and says it plain. I see myself looking back. The voice he was sure was empty answers him.

The song doesn’t try to fix the man in the mirror. It stays with him while the made-up self falls open. The walls were built. Built things come down. What stands when they fall was already standing.

T.J. Kelley