I'll Be Your Mirror

Love the simple beauty of the message "I'll be your mirror". All of us are fragile and in need of reassuring and finding someone who understands you without even saying anything makes you feel that everything will be alright, even when it isn't. Having someone who'll be with you in all seasons, in times of happiness and sadness is one of life's treasures.

I am particularly endeared by the verses:

When you think the night has seen your mind That inside you're twisted and unkind Let me stand to show that you are blind

All of us intellectual/romantic posers just have to believe that we are, oh so twisted and unkind, and our soul is always made of shadows (and which VU fan can honestly deny to have an intellectual/romantic poser side?)

But when someone really loves us she sees us for what we are: the darkness doesn't come from a haunted soul but from a blind sight (and sometimes is also projected by an inflated ego). We are so desperately trying not to be the regular guys that we actually are, and that we should be happy and proud to be!

i love the hope this song expresses that we can eventually find someone else who can bring about our true selves - someone else who can 'reflect what you are'. i love the outro the most for that reason.

nico was, and is, a godess. i read that this was one of the hardest songs for thev vu to record because of nico's harsh accent. take after take the guys wanted her to do it even softer and she'd do it even harder than the previous. eventually, before the version we all know today, she was in tears at the fact she couldn't user up a angelic voice for it. and after crying they gave it one last shot. and nico got it. but, i dont think anyone could have sung this better. her voice lets you know it's a nico/vu song.

one of the few simple songs ever written that you still need to find a meaning.

I know this song is supposed to be hopeful because we don't all know 'the beauty we are' and if we did we'd be termed arrogant but its still so sad. There is no resolution to the song, at the end Nico is still saying 'please put down your hands' and it just feels like the person she is trying to reassure will never see themselves as others see them. I played this song a lot when one of my friends killed themselves-I spent my entire life trying to explain to her how amazing she was and she never saw it. Although it is pretty, it is also hopeless

This song, simply put, is about finding that perfect someone who completes you and who is always there for you. Its about true love, in a word. And Nico's voice is haunting on this one.

if there is one thing you can say about this song - one thing which distinguishes it from almost anything else Lou wrote at this time - it's that it's completely free from cynicism. It's an honest and heartfelt love song for the times when we all need reassurance. And it's remarkably beautiful.

This song was written after a 1965 "Exploding. Plastic. Inevitable." performance when Nico came up to Lou Reed and said "Oh Lou, I'll Be Your Mirror."

sheslostcontrol - i guess i can see that in the song too; this unrealistic expectation that your entire self-image can be completely positively redefined by one other person, that the beautiful reflection created by that person's love could be enough to diffuse every negative view you have of yourself or your life... but even if i admit it's unrealistic and maybe even kind of dangerous in some ways (expecting a single other person to define your self for you), it's somehow a lovely metaphor and rings true in the sense that experiencing love and acceptance and admiration from others tends to make us like ourselves more than we would otherwise, and maybe even turn us a little more into the idealized person they see. i guess i want to say that even if that alone can't possibly be enough to keep someone from suicide, it does make life better.

lou reed is genius Nico is a godess! This song is so simple and beautiful, and nicos voice and acsent make it!