Vanity — A stylish adult studies vintage Merced barbershop mirrors whose reflections become flowers, age lines, birds and honest human warmth

The songbook

Vanity

Words by Douglas Heyes Jr. Listen to the recorded versions and follow the lyric below.

Original Doug Heyes lyrics · AI-generated music & vocals

An admirer feels erased by a lover's absorption in her own reflection. Attraction remains powerful, but mirrors and carefully staged appearances keep real intimacy out of reach. The narrator's farewell holds both admiration and heartbreak, acknowledging that beauty alone cannot bridge the distance between being desired and being truly seen.

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Recorded versions

3 recordings. Different voices and arrangements bring another side of the song into the light.

Lyrics

Vanity

Words by Douglas Heyes Jr

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VANITY

Your Vanity starts to get to me
Every time you walk away
You tried to undo me
Almost every single day
You could see right through me
Even when you looked away
There were mirrors everywhere
It was like I wasn't there

You'd go sparking down the hall
Slow dancing at the Royal Ball
Nothing left to circumstance
And nothing ever left to chance
I remember the first moment
When you fell in love with you
Another lover's sad lament
Tell me how do I get through?

Your Vanity
Strips away a part of you
Insanity
That you say it isn't true
You'll come back to me
When you know you've gone too far
It's a tragedy
When you forget just who you are

There's a part of me, deep inside my heart
That still believes your Vanity just tears my Soul apart
My Love, you are so beautiful, you're a living work of Art
I wish I knew what to say to you, but I don’t know where to start

Your Vanity comes back to me each time I think of you
You’re more like a fantasy than you are a dream come true
For one more night in ecstasy, I would give it all away
But, Baby, it’s your Vanity that keeps getting in our way

Life’s a one-way mirror, with no reflections cast
Love is just an echo of the shadows of the past
Like a stained glass window, or a widow’s looking glass
Or dew upon a spiderweb on a single blade of grass

The ghost of other days gone by
The memory of a Lullaby
Love means never asking why
 Love is not supposed to die

I'll always remember you
I hope your dreams are coming true
Your vanity keeps us apart
I'll say good night with a broken heart
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