The Other Side Of The Mirror is a very dark album

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by HejiraNYC

Stevie described the meaning behind the song- that it was about the things she would risk her life to save if her house was burning (I believe they were her tapes and a cashmere blanket ).

Didn't she say she would save her cat(s) too?

I never thought there was anything upbeat about this album, either on the surface or at a deeper level. On the surface you have the Alice in Wonderland reference, which is itself not only dark, but drug related. For me that is all about manipulation, distortion, delusion and denial. Sanity is at test for Alice and the people around her all seem to be trying to rob her of it, a mass gaslighting that would have made Charles Boyer mavel.

All of the album's songs are in keeping with that theme and I don't even see Rooms on Fire as uplifting, just because there is magic all around, because it seems fleeting. Magic ends. Maybe I'm influenced by the video, but the part of that song that stays with me is the long nets of white clouding memory, not the magic. For me, the magic only comes into play to compound the sense of loss, because I think of having felt it, only to have it taken away. It's more about hating to be separated than of feeling the exhilaration of fire.

The only song to me that could even be seen as remotely cheery is Two Kinds of Love.

Michele