What holds your hope together,
Make sure it's strong enough
When you reach the end of your tether
It's because it wasn't strong enough,
I was going to drown,
Then I started swimming
I was going down,
Then I started winning
Winning - winning
When you're on the bottom
Crawl back to the top
Something pulls you up,
and a voice you can't stop,
I was going to drown,
Then I started swimming,
I was going down
Then I started winning
Winning - winning.
Make sure it's strong enough
When you reach the end of your tether
It's because it wasn't strong enough,
I was going to drown,
Then I started swimming
I was going down,
Then I started winning
Winning - winning
Crawl back to the top
Something pulls you up,
and a voice you can't stop,
I was going to drown,
Then I started swimming,
I was going down
Then I started winning
Winning - winning.
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To me the song is about the futility of trying to win the "social double bind game" by effort. As Paramahansa Yogananda said in Autobiography of a Yogi----Maya (ignorance) can never be destroyed through intellectual conviction or analysis. That said; the song kicks butt musically. The vocals are emotionally intense and it has a cool guitar passage. A perfect song--as good as anything by Joy Division or New Order
What really makes it hit so close to home is that I can hear it both ways: as a testimony to determination or as an ironic, heart wrenching moment of defeat. Yes, it is just as good, if not better than anything out there at the time that was getting more attention.