(The) Harvey Danger Database

Little Round Mirrors

Recorded

Release history

Credits

Alternate versions

Lyrics

All alone, on the floor
next to your twin-bed box spring and mattress
The door is ajar
From afar, you can hear bands practicing
And when they dream, they all dream of somebody like you—
somebody who takes what they make
twice as seriously as they could ever hope to do

And when you dream, you dream of a day
when you find something you could love half as much
as you love all your little round mirrors
See yourself reflected in one:
there’s a hole in the middle you can’t seem to fill

Bring them home, watch them go—
All you know is you hope they’ll hurry back
And you cry, then you lie your frail body down
like a penny on a railroad track
And even if they stay in touch, the past stays in the past
But every time you crash a little bit harder than the last

And every time you crash, don’t you
want to find something you can love
half as much as you love all your little round mirrors?
See yourself reflected in one:
there’s a hole in the middle you can’t seem to fill

A shooting star is a little piece of cosmic debris
desperately wanting to fall to earth
It doesn’t get too far; it’s not a real star
It’s hardly even worth footnotes in your memoir
Shoulder to shoulder, up on our tiptoes
chewing our fingers and craning our necks just to see
Quite the collection
Divide by section
It’s just a surrogate connection leaving you:

All alone, on the floor
Next to your twin-bed box spring and mattress
The door’s still ajar
There you are and there you’re going to stay until

You can find someone who will love you
as much as you love all your little round mirrors
Murdering your time in cold blood:
there’s a hole in the middle you can’t seem to fill

Quotes

JJL: Probably the best thing we’ve done. Certainly the one I’m proudest of yet. I remember Michael buzzing with excitement after the take; later hearing strains of the rough mix through the floor and thinking, did we really do that?10A

AMH: As rough as “Little Round Mirrors” was the first few times we attempted it as a full band, it was clear that it would become the heart of the record.10A

SCN: “Little Round Mirrors” is the album’s apex, certainly one of the top 3 or 4 we ever did; it arose from and is dedicated to people I met while touring in the Long Winters, people whose devout immersion in the culture of music registers both as a kind of schizotypal syndrome, and a lifeline to the people immersed in the other side of the pool; when we finally got the French Horn line ironed out, it felt like we had finally touched the hem of McCartney’s garment, if only in my dreams.10A

Michael: An excerpt from the journal I kept during the recording of Little By Little…: ‘Little Round Mirrors,’ what a song. It finally became whole in the studio, two takes before THE take. We had worked on it during rehearsals but I wasn’t 100% behind my drumming decisions. What ended up on the record was something I hadn’t expected. I want to believe the spontaneity of the song added a character we didn’t expect, but who knows…10A

SCN: The subject of the song is the way that you can dive into your love of music, and music culture, too much for your own good. I met lots of people—and maybe even have been that kind of person—[whose] desire to be one with the culture of music that was so exciting to them led them to make damaging choices. In a way, the expression of the self, or the quest to express the self, was the thing that kind of destroyed the self… the thing that made you feel like you’d found yourself was the very thing that you’d inevitably lose yourself to.AD

Listen