House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls

In "House of Balloons", the Weeknd sings about a party he is at in his "Happy House" in a tone described by Billboard as unconvincing.[4] The song is built around a sample of "Happy House" by the British band Siouxsie and the Banshees.[4][5] McKinney states that he initially conceived the beat for the song in 2008, intending it for Santigold before he played it to the Weeknd.[4] 'The song has the Weeknd singing in falsetto about a party.[5] He is attempting to convince the listener that everything is positive, but in reality, people are miserable.[6]

In "Glass Table Girls", the sample from "Happy House" is replaced with a much darker beat, described by Billboard as "brute percussion and low-end churn", replaces it. The beat for McKinney noted he produced the beat and the transition due to the Weeknd's desire to rap.[4] The song's refrain is a reference to a glass table made out of a Boeing 707 wheel. The verse features the Weeknd mixing rapping and low-pitch singing about doing coke and about sleeping with another person's girlfriend. Glass tables are commonly used to snort cocaine on. Impact describes the Weeknd as being "completely gone" at the end.[4][7]

Two different demos of the track are known to exist. One is of just "Glass Table Girls", which features a completely different instrumental and vocal take. The second is a 25 minute version of the existing song, with multiple freestyle verses.[8]

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.[9] Pitchfork later placed it on its list of top 100 songs of 2011 at #57, with Eric Grandy saying it was "Tesfaye at his best, emoting in a androgynous falsetto one minute, muttering unbelievable curses the next."[5] 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". Billboard stated that the journey the Weeknd has in the song: From "this is kinda creepy but mostly chill" to "wow, this gathering of merrymakers is actually a degenerate nightmare" only works as it does because the two parts are in a single song, rather than being split.[4] Rolling Stone had declared "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."[2] 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."[7] In September 2021, Rolling Stone placed the first part of the song at #488 on its list of the 500 best songs of all time.[10]

It was performed at his first ever show at the Mod Club on July 24, 2011, with the rest of the House of Balloons mixtape, along with "The Birds Pt. 1" and "Rolling Stone" from his second mixtape, Thursday.[11]

"House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls" and four other songs from either House of Balloons or Beauty Behind the Madness were performed for Vevo Presents: The Weeknd @ Mod Club in 2015.[12][13]

The chorus of "House of Balloons" was performed on February 7, 2021, at the Weeknd's Super Bowl LV halftime show. Long time fans had celebrated the performance of the song, as they had reflected on his journey from being a blog favorite in the 2010's to performing the Super bowl halftime show.[14][15]

Credits adapted from Tidal, which are in turn adapted from the liner notes of Trilogy.[16]

• Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd) – lead vocals, composer, songwriting, executive production
• Carlo Montagnese (Illangelo) – production, mixing, instrumentation, songwriting/composition
• Martin McKinney (Doc McKinney) – production, mixing, instrumentation, songwriting/composition
• Matthew Acton − assistant recording engineer