Songfacts®:

• "Mirror People" is a snapshot of 1980s club life in Columbus, Ohio. It's also a meditation on the folly of seeking inner peace through external praise.
  
  Love And Rockets frontman Daniel Ash gave Songfacts the skinny, explaining that the song came to him while he was at a nightclub in Columbus, where his ex-wife was from.
  
  "All the people in the clubs were very fashion conscious, very self-conscious as well," he said. "Very into what they looked like. There's nothing wrong with that at all, but I noticed in this particular club, all the walls were mirrors, and all these people were staring at themselves in the mirrors while they were dancing, and even when they weren't."
  
  Despite his reassurance that "there's nothing wrong with that at all," the lyrics note the interior emptiness the mirror-people hide.
  
  The mirror people, know not how to cry
  So they scream, the mirror people scream inside
• The Daniel Ash writing "Mirror People" has matured and found confidence. He no longer relies on any cliques or scenes to give him his self-assurance, and he's thankful for it.
  
  I'm so happy with my feet on the ground
  So happy, my head spins around
  Quite content to sit on this fence
• "Mirror People" is the opening track on Earth, Sun, Moon, Love And Rockets' third studio album. The original version of the song was distributed as a standalone recording for promotional purposes in 1987, the year the album went live.
  
  The band released a different version of "Mirror People" six months later (1988) as the fourth of five official singles from Earth, Sun, Moon. The revamped single version is harder-driving than the original.
  
  The song didn't chart, but it shared space with "No New Tale To Tell," the band's first hit, which helped lift Earth, Sun, Moon to #64 on the US charts (it still failed to chart in the band's native UK). This gave momentum to the band's next album, the self-titled Love And Rockets, which would be their biggest success. It hit #14 on the US chart and went Gold.
• The UK version of the single has an intriguing B-side called "David Lanfair," which is comprised of interview questions an aspiring journalist sent to the band on tape.
• Exclusive to the compact disc (CD) release of Earth, Sun, Moon was a slower version simply titled "Mirror People (Slow Version)." It's on the CD in addition to the original.
• In 2013 the band released a five-CD compilation box set titled 5 Albums. It includes the original version of "Mirror People," the 1988 single remake, and a live version.