Commentary 2 - On "Undertow"

My intention with writing this song was to convey the anxiety of how it felt for me to go to a whole different state, away from everything I knew. My college was very academically intense, there were weeks on end where I could not rest before getting behind. Days just blurred together at some point. It felt like no matter what I tried to do to ease the anxiety, things would just get worse as I had to keep going. Sometimes it made me wonder if no one cared about me as a person and instead I was just there to give them free exposure since I was a good student. I decided to make this aquatic themed since back in Steubenville Ohio, everyone knows that the water there is not good for you. It was nasty too! But you lived with it to get the education you wanted. I tried sprinkling that in, showing that even a wave that looks pure and clean can be contaminated and dirty as it pulls you back in. I always had the idea of writing a poem based on aquatic language for the longest time now, ever since I had heard my favorite Indie artist Nathan Sharp’s song called “Drowning”. I wanted to illustrate anxiety that would come in a seemingly endless cycle, as it felt that way back during my college days. At certain points it felt like I was just trying to compete with others for the sake of being acknowledged as a student and as a person rather than for the sake of my own education. I felt like I needed to be like others in order to be respected and adored when in actuality they didn’t even care enough to see the real me in the first place. This speaks to the idea that I felt replaceable as a student to the institution because I wasn’t like the students being adored and promoted all of the time. By trying to fit into that view, I lost myself to the point where I berated myself for even taking a moment to rest. No matter the grades or the accomplishments done I was never satisfied because no one cared. It was a tough pill to swallow. I would bring this anxiety up to others and they would just disregard it instead of giving me true comfort in the moment. Maybe I didn’t know what exactly I was looking for but I know I wasn’t being understood the way I wanted to be. I can’t tell you what made things hard for me. Maybe I was worried my worth wouldn’t be justified if I did poorly. Maybe it was because I was scared that this was all I had. Whatever it was, I’m out of it and I wanted to share it with you.