#breaking glass

We start with John’s name being announced, but he’s nowhere to be found. There is a pause before the backing track begins.

And he enters. Shrouded in darkness. You can’t see much, just his face and his hunched form staggering onto the stage. You wonder what could possibly be causing him such difficulty when finally, he steps into the light and you see them: a train of dancers clinging to him, clawing at him, trying to pull him back to the darkness from which he emerged. (It doesn’t help that the first recording I ever saw took a moment to pan to the side, an even more exaggerated delay in the reveal).

The weight of these bodies cause him to lose his balance at times, lending a disoriented look to his movements; the sunglasses he wears in the otherwise dark room adds to this—they’re protecting his eyes from the searing stage lights, almost as if he’d just been on a bender and is now performing while painfully hungover. The lyrics at this point paint an even darker picture. Baby, I did something terrible, and it’s going to hurt you when you see what I’ve done. I wasn’t myself, but I couldn’t stop it. It may well happen again. His voice shudders as if every word hurts, or he’s simply trembling under the weight of his guilt. Through these first verses he appears unwell.

When the chorus hits us, Flans shoots upright and we catch a glimpse of his usual bright stage presence. Even his voice returns to normal. “Such a wonderful person / But you got problems” strikes me lyrically because it almost feels like he’s shifting the blame to his lover—yeah, I fucked up, but you have problems too. You’re not perfect. But I still love you.