Glory Box - Live

"Glory Box" is an Australian term for a piece of furniture where women store clothes and other items in preparation for marriage. The title doesn't appear in the lyric.

The song is about a woman who is frustrated by love and ready to give up on her relationship. The lines, "Give me a reason to be a woman, it's all I want to be is all woman," are a plea to the man, asking that he treat her with equality and respect, especially in the bedroom. The song was sometimes misinterpreted as a call for the man to take charge in the relationship, reverting to more traditional gender roles. Lead singer Beth Gibbons found this infuriating. "Half the reason you write them is that you're feeling misunderstood and frustrated with life in general," she told the Independent on Sunday, regarding the songs. "Then it's sort of successful and you think you've communicated with people, but then you realize you haven't communicated with them at all – you've turned the whole thing into a product, so then you're even more lonely than when you started."

Portishead were a UK group formed in Bristol by Geoff Barrow (numerous instruments), Beth Gibbons (vocals), Adrain Utley (guitar) and Dave McDonald (sound engineer). This was their first of three UK Top 20 hits. The album it came from, Dummy, was named as 1994's album of the year by three separate British magazines, Melody Maker, Mixmag, and The Face. In 1995 it won the prestigious Mercury Music Prize, awarded to the best album by a British artist.