SWIMMING POOLS _Song of the Week - March 1st/2019
Mar 01 by Kalafia Montes
Warning: This track has language that most individuals may define as “profane”, this post is not to critique or judge the choice of words used throughout the song, but to instead find the therapeutic value in its message.
What is the song " SWIMMING POOLS" about?
What I find most interesting about this track is how open and honest the artist has allowed his listeners to view his understanding of the struggle to “fit in with the popular." Now this song, Ii believe expresses one major theme of recognizing one's limits. Obviously, the connection of limits to how much one drinks/uses is a given, but another more important limit is the limit on how we as humans allow our boundaries to be controlled by others. He expresses that his biggest issue was one of trying to fit in, so he was coerced (easily) to expand his limits as they relate to his ability to “hold his liquor”. The imagery of comparing drinking to swimming in a pool creates on one hand an image of lounging and relaxing while on the other one of drowning. This track ends with an interlude scene describing some of the acts these young men do when they are high/drunk, which in this instance leads to ones death by gunshot. Now it goes without saying that I do not blame drugs and alcohol more so our understanding of what these substances (the ones that are legal anyway) are really for. This song does a great job of setting up the images that many of us can relate to (trying to fit in) while contrasting it with a culture that also has its own set of rituals (gangs). The idea of doing anything to fit in can be deadly in many ways, but this track does an amazing job of illustrating just how it happens for thousands of young men and women living in the poorest of conditions this country has within it.