How Interpol Looks Inward on New Song “This Mirror Weighs A Ton”

Since Interpol emerged in 2002 with its debut, Turn On The Bright Lights, the New York band has worked hard to keep the bright lights on. They have released a steady stream of albums while largely adhering to both their musical and visual aesthetic.

That’s not to say they haven’t evolved. Led by singer Paul Banks, whose baritone delivers gloomy tales over brooding, post-punk drones, Interpol both benefited from and survived the early 2000s New York scene they helped define. And survival often requires moments of self-reflection, which is exactly where Banks finds himself in “This Mirror Weighs A Ton”, the title track of Interpol’s eighth studio album.

It’s a Habit

A deliberate, melancholy intro sets the disorienting mood. Then Banks enters, wallowing in misery and isolation. And he’s alone with his phone, which can reach everyone and no one at the same time.

It’s a habit, it’s all good,
I fall in a hole, loser.
Fade in symphonic,
Like the phone that’s dialing.
Alone again,
Unknown again.

Banks gazes into a mirror as his wife, the fashion designer Juliet Seger-Banks, punctuates his despair with ghostly exhales. But this point of self-assessment could easily be aimed at societal collapse and how we seem to be losing our ability to communicate with one another amid increasingly powerful technology.

This mirror weighs a ton,
But at least we act sudden.
All the words are gone, but the radios in your head,
Still speak the arcane to the out there.
We’re never really done, but we’re here to wax sunny,
All the kings are gone, but the maniac in your head,
Still sleeps in archways, alone as an act of faith.

If We Want To Plug In

Explaining his writing process, Banks said, “I often write sort of in characters, and I think often the characters are either in some form of denial or in some form of revelation.”

Though the individual in “This Mirror Weighs A Ton” is looking inward, the metaphor works on a wider scale. The reflection may be heavy, but it also reveals various truths, and with those truths, perhaps, a warning.

If we want to plug in,
The hardness, the feeling,
To turn into silence,
Then we won’t survive.

Photo by Joseph Okpako/WireImage