Affective Display

✍🏻 WRITTEN/COMPOSED BY EME LATINA (2026) ------------ ABOUT: ------------ The Circuit, Round 6: Pop x Disco Instructions: Vocal - Duet Instrument - Bass Word to use - Mirrorball This song explores the surface tension between radiance and emptiness, between being admired for one’s light and feeling unseen beneath it. It's meant to reveal how people might project brightness onto others while ignoring their own fragility. The mirrorball becomes the central metaphor: “A thousand bright pieces making darkness look beautiful.” Musically, it interplays a deep bass groove with up-tempo disco to mirror the lyrical theme of affective display, which is a psychology term. We're all mirrorballs in life; we have the capacity to shine where there's light... but we're just pieces of ourselves in the dark. ----------- LYRICS: ----------- Turn the lights up, down Turn the lights up.... Turn the lights up! Turn the lights up, I know what to do Give ’em a smile, give ’em all you... Turn the lights down, and disappear Funny how the dark makes everything more clear Ooh… (Ooh), Ooh… (Ooh) Hear it: “You’re glowing, you’re electric, babe!” But what happens to you when it all fades? Most get a version that's easy to hold, yet most won't notice when you're actually cold... I'm radiant because they want me to be (I break because they don't really see) They love the light I can throw around (I’m still picking pieces of myself from the ground) [chorus] We’re like a mirrorball, nothing in the middle; a thousand bright pieces making darkness look beautiful We’re like a mirrorball, shining through it all; empty in the middle, still lighting up the walls! Affective display, I know exactly what to say, turn my good side facing outward, make the vastness look great. Brilliant dissociation, what a beautiful sensation. Watch me with fascination, smile through the devastation; I'm all of my pieces, no matter how small (I hope that me shining can fool them all!) [chorus] (Surface tension, holding everything in place, Let's go dancing, don't forget to fix your face) Refracting, adapting, whatever we're handed... Even if you fall, don't forget you've landed [final chorus] Turn the lights up, down Turn the lights up, down I know what to do Give ’em a smile, give ’em all you... We're all of our pieces, no matter how small... And still shining like a mirror, mirrorball.