
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.
Listen
Recorded versions
3 recordings. Different voices and arrangements bring another side of the song into the light.
Female Vocal · 2:57
Vanity — Female Vocal — Jangling Alternative Folk-Pop
Jangling Alternative Folk-Pop
Mixed Vocals · 3:03
Vanity — Mixed Vocals — Spoken-Word Jazz-Rock Reinterpretation
Spoken-Word Jazz-Rock Reinterpretation
Lyrics
Vanity
Words by Douglas Heyes Jr
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 *********
© Douglas Heyes Jr. All rights reserved.
