Slow and Steady

This song is about the weight of loneliness; its about the struggle to overcome your lonely tendencies. The idea is that your shadow will never let you go, or hurt you, and can be a great friend in a time of solace. However, its hard to move on when your only peer is your own loving shadow. You'll convince yourself that you're never ready to show your true colors, and that no one would ever understand them anyhow. This is a very powerful cycle, kin to powerful emotions which is symbolized by the waterfall. But regardless of how strong any of your feelings are, even if living this way makes you feel better, you'll always be moving slow and steady past the monsters in your head. You'll never become anything better if you stay cooped up, with the lights out, somehow dancing still with your shadow.

I think this is my favorite song on the album. To me, it represents experiencing all those "live changing events"; graduating, finding a job, first serious relationship, etc., with the facade of simply moving from one life event to the next. From another person's perspective, these are things that everyone experiences, and not that big of a deal, and so one moves "slowly" and "steadily" from one thing to the next. But from an individual's perspective, each experience is still substantial and emotional, and things seem to move fast in those moments, "like a waterfall".

This will be a depressing one and (I'm confident) very probably not what the authors had in mind. I interpret "the shadow," the "dear old friend," and the "monsters in my head" as one and the same--namely, dark and paralyzing thoughts about life and the singer's place in it.

For whatever reason (a bad grade, a death in the family, a broken nail, etc), the lights go out, and the singer retreats to the shadow--her dear old friend--and, slowly and steadily, they dance with one another without letting go. The feelings of pain, anguish, suffering, and discontent are old and familiar, and, therefore, although they are acknowledged to be bad and morally undesirable "monsters in [her] head," they provide a sort of perverse comfort bred from that familiarity. They are her "dear old friend[s]," and part of her is glad to be back in a familiar and stable (although stable in the most unwholesome way) environment instead of the less usual and less familiar "light," which just went out, and, even worse, the jarring transition between light and shadow. In short, "[she's] letting go, but [she's] never felt better."

How to account for "feeling like a waterfall?" I would think the comparison would mean she's feeling emotional, in the midst of tumult, free-falling, but being jarred along the way down as well. She's moving "slow and steady" with her shadow, but, despite the comfort of being in the familiar position with those dark emotions, the loss of the light and, what's worse, how she lost it, is not far from her mind, and, I suspect, it's like a knife.

How to explain the last verses? The better part of her--the part of her that is more morally praiseworthy and striving to flourish in light rather than subsist in dank shadows--wants to LIVE, take chances, and put herself out to the world. She "knows" (read; firmly believes), however, that she'll never be ready to do that, because no amount of time will sufficiently heal her or insulate her from the fears of failing when taking those chances. Time, she believes, won't make her strong and brave, so, instead of braving life in the light where the lethal knife stroke may fall but joy may also be found, she resigns herself to living in the shadow with monsters in her mind, where there is no danger of a lethal and sudden knife stroke but no hope of the best of things, or even maybe of just what makes life worthwhile, either.

I think this is a person who is struggling with a huge internal conflict. At night they are left alone with the monsters inside their head. They have some regrets in life, maybe just bad timing with a person that they love. They obviously wish they could go back to better times, but they know this is not the case and have to find a way to make peace with it in order to move forward. The problem is that they aren't ready to move on because they are still hoping for a chance to make things right, a chance they will never get.

Great track off this album. Didn't notice it at first but it is simple and beautiful. Reminds me graduating from college.

I feel as though everyone is making too general assumptions about this song, this is a VERY personal song. Have you ever say, had strong feelings for someone and they weren't returned after expressing them to that person? Or got in to a fight with someone you care about, not resolved it and let it pull you apart? Then have you ever tried to walk "Past the ones that I used to know" in public? You force yourself to act normally but in your head your mind is in overdrive thinking about just about everything involving said person "I move slow and steady But I feel like a waterfall" As well you may want to say something but you dont feel comfortable doing so "I know That time won't let me Show what I want to show"(You keep postponing solving the problem till you eventually feel its too late to do anything, youve lost your window of opportunity)

In summation its about the conflict and physical experience of trying to move past an uncomfortable part of your life both mentally and physically and the problems it presents. And the how sometimes you just have to dance with your own shadow (be happy with yourself and not require validation from others no matter how tough it can be) , or let a dear old freind take you for a spin(get your mind off of it)

brisngr47 is a 1000 times right. I didn't think about it until he (or she) said it, but I've been at college for a few weeks and whenever I hear this song I'm so comforted and relaxed. And now I get it, because represents ME and many other people so much.

Easily one of my favorite songs off the album

Having so much to say and do and show everyone but only being able to make a tiny bit of it visible for the rest of the world. It's like adhd or a hypomanic episode, where you're just itching to do things and change things and make shit happen, but your body can only do so much and you get to the point where you're exhausted but you still want to keep going and your body's limits are frustrating you. Your mind is rushing but your body can't keep up.

Or maybe I'm just reading too much into this bc, as a person who struggles with this, I like finding respectful references to mental illness in music.

This song is about letting things go and becoming independent. Knowing you can't be anything you want to be. And being happy and alone, but not lonley.

This song is about a relationship between "two wolves" (lovers) that is going to fast for singer even though it's actually moving at a slow pace. This doesn't make her "ready" to let go of being alone as her "shadow holds" her "and it never lets" her "go".

She's happy with the relationship but it's not going to work for her