Tightrope
A tightrope puts the speaker up on something too narrow to hold her safely: a rope or a trapeze, a thin or fragile line, a branch high off the ground. In mirrorball she is still on the tightrope, still performing after the circus has closed, and it is no less precarious for her. In exile the couple always walked a very thin line. Ground that gives way underfoot belongs with Feet or Floors.
A tightrope marks a position the speaker can keep only with care, where a single slip ends it. For the performer it is holding on after the show has stopped. In love it is a relationship with very little room in it.
Appears in 6 songs
“I'm still on that tightrope”
The speaker is still on the tightrope, still performing after the circus has shut down around her. The act has stopped but the danger has not, and keeping her balance is as precarious as it ever was.
“I'm still on that trapeze”
On the trapeze she is held up by a narrow bar with nothing beneath her. The image keeps her in the act and still at risk of the fall.
“We always walked a very thin line”
The couple always walked a very thin line, so the relationship had little room for error from the start. The line describes the whole of it, not one bad moment.
“Balancin' on breaking branches”
Balancing on breaking branches puts the relationship out on a hold that is already giving way, where one misstep brings everything down.
“I'm standin' on a tightrope alone”
The speaker stands on a tightrope alone. She is keeping her balance in a relationship where nobody is up there with her, so if she falls, she falls by herself.
“Your heartbeat on the High Line”
The line names the High Line, the elevated park in Manhattan. Uncle Jerry also hears a tightrope in it, a heart beating faster up on a narrow line, which fits a first love remembered as thrilling and unsteady.
“Lost your balance on a tightrope”
The song puts the person it is talking to on a tightrope and admits they have already slipped. Its answer is that the balance can be got back, which is the forgiveness the song is offering.
“You and I walk a fragile line”
She has always known the line she walks with him is fragile. Knowing it did not prepare her for seeing it break.