House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls

In an interview with Rolling Stone, the Weeknd said that the inspiration for the first part and the mixtape's title came from a house located in Parkdale, Toronto. He stated that he and his friends would throw parties and invite girls over, and to make it more "celebratory", they would add balloons. The producer Doc McKinney had first met the Weeknd through Adrian Gough and Cirkut in January 2011. As McKinney played songs to the Weeknd for consideration, "House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls" immediately caught his attention. During an interview with the Canadian broadcaster Tom Power, McKinney revealed more information regarding the recording of the track; stating that before the second part of the track was made, it was originally a 25 minute version of "House of Balloons". The Weeknd expressed his desire to rap at the end of the track, asking McKinney to make a beat, leading to the creation of "Glass Table Girls". Afterwards, it was included on the Weeknd's compilation album, Trilogy, on November 13, 2012. == Music and lyrics ==

The song is a two-part track. In the first part, "House of Balloons", the Weeknd sings about a party he is at in his "Happy House". Around three and a half minutes into the track, the track's instrumental switches to its second song, "Glass Table Girls", with the sample from "Happy House" replaced by a much darker beat, described by Billboard as "brute percussion and low-end churn". The verse features the Weeknd mixing rapping and low-pitch singing about doing cocaine, sleeping with another person's girlfriend, and themes of sex. Impact described the Weeknd as being "completely gone" by the end. == Critical reception ==

In a review of the first half of the song, Pitchfork noted how while the song may sound like a "fluffy counterpart" to "What You Need", the song has a similar level of sadness to it. They later ranked it at number 57 on their list of Top 100 Songs, with Eric Grandy saying it was "Tesfaye at his best, emoting in a androgynous falsetto one minute, muttering unbelievable curses the next." Billboard named it a "song that defined the 2010's" calling the song "intoxicating and menacing", stating it is "the sound of a party degrading in real time", writing that the journey the Weeknd has in the song, from "kinda creepy but mostly chill" to "a degenerate nightmare [of a gathering of merrymakers]" only works as it does because the two songs are in one track, rather than being separated. Daria Patarek of Impact called the track "another incredible entry in the Weeknd's debut mixtape 'House of Balloons', which explores his rise to fame, and consequently his entry into the drug-ridden, sex-filled and money-obsessed music world." Rolling Stone ranked "House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls" as the Weeknd's 9th best track, noting its second half as "one of the most viscerally affecting entries in the Weeknd's whole catalog, as icy and thunderous as an avalanche." They also placed its first part 488th on their 2021 revision of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Complex named "House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls" as the best song released under the XO record label, stating it "defined" the sound of the Weeknd's "trailblazing, totally singular debut mixtape House of Balloons," further writing that the song's sound "would swiftly dominate the Weeknd's native Toronto and far beyond," and that it would influence an entire decade of "moody hip-hop and melancholic R&B." == Live performances ==

"House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls" was performed at the Weeknd's first ever show at the Mod Club Theatre on July 24, 2011. The song was included on the set list for his headlining performance at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, which was his first show in the United States, followed by during The Fall Tour, his debut headlining tour in North America tour and for his first show in the United Kingdom on June 8. The full song was included on the set list for three of his concert tours—the Kiss Land Fall Tour (2013), the Madness Fall Tour (2015) and Asia Tour (2018). Its second part by itself was included on the set list for the Starboy: Legend of the Fall Tour (2017) and the first part during his Super Bowl LV halftime show on February 7, 2021, and on the set list for the second leg of the After Hours til Dawn Tour (2023). == Personnel ==

Credits adapted from Apple Music. • Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd) – lead vocals, composition, songwriting, executive production • Carlo Montagnese (Illangelo) – composition, production, mixing, engineering • Martin McKinney (Doc McKinney) – composition. production, engineering • Matthew Acton − assistant recording engineer Samples • Susan Ballion (Siouxsie Sioux) – songwriting • John McGeoch – songwriting • Steven Severin – songwriting • Peter Clarke (Budgie) – songwriting == Certifications ==