Bright Lights and Cityscapes

First question: characters. Who are they? There is the narrator, who I’ll call “Sara” just for the hell of it. There is also the listener who I’ll call “you” and the other female who I’ll call “Shiny.” The first four lines detail a servile relationship between you and Sara. Sara accepts that her breathing is under your control and that your words are permanently written on her, even to the point that she becomes just a tool to be hung up to dry after use. The next four lines differentiate between Sara and Shiny as writer and muse, seemingly contradictory to the previous lines. It’s as if Sara is affirming that indeed, she has a voice, a writer’s voice, as opposed to Shiny’s lack of it. But in predicting Shiny’s behaviors and destiny, the lines blur themselves with wishfulness and blunt criticism. This mentality is prolonged through the chorus as Shiny is denounced as selfish and fickle, ultimately a lost cause. But at the lines, “Til you start looking back, / I’m gonna love you so right, / I wouldn’t need a second chance,” Sara becomes self-critical. To rephrase, the idea is: Because I loved you so right, you would not be able to look back and find anything that can incriminate me.

Then “Shield your eyes from the truth at end, / Tell me why it’ll be good again,” a concession that everything is going to the shits someday. Sara would prefer that instead of being realistic and depressed, you have hope, no matter how small or irrational it is. When she proclaims herself rising “flame” to your remaining “carbon” self, it is part of her (poetic) writer’s voice and in spite of previous servility. Thus, Sara admits that both you and she write and are written on, being the powers that make up the relationship.

As the chorus runs again, who Shiny is appears clearer. It seems that she and her attributes, although garish and unpleasant at times and what will in the end pull you apart, are what allow you and Sara to be thought of as a couple. So it seems to me that Sara would like you to love her as well and write on her as she does to you (because that’s what songs do).

In conclusion, Ghost Sara expresses the “missing” “I’m gonna love you” line in wordless voice and emphasizes Sara’s “I wouldn’t need a second chance,” emphasizing also how erroneous human ways are. Ghost Sara reflects the shiny cityscape on the song’s outer gossamer.