Swimming Song

To me it's about coping with life. 'I might have drowned/but I held my breath, and I kicked my feet/and I moved my arms around' - life is overwhelming, but we do our best and struggle through it and maybe our swimming improves ever so slightly.

I happen to disagree with tthe comment that this song is just about swimming. While a lot of Loudon's early stuff is pretty one-dimensional (cite: The Acid Song), I think this is probably his most meaningful song of his early albums. This song is all about experience, and I think that the summer he is referring to is all about his childhood to adulthood, and how you learn to see things differently and to take things slow. At the same time you take risks, and you calculate mistakes. It's about the person he portrays himself to be and the person he really is. The song is my favorite of his massive repertoire.

About way more than swimming, cmon. He might've drowned but he held his breath and kicked his feet and moved his arms around. It's about living life to its fullest without fearing death.

I think it’s great that this song is about all of the above posts. To a child this song is about swimming. It’s obvious. To someone thinking about relationships or alcoholism, it’s about those things. What’s really great is that the song is so good at being about all those things, and it sounds so simple. I don’t think he sat down and wrote a song about any single one of those things. But I think all of those things were in his mind and produced the song somehow.

I love how Loudon's songs don't seem to be about anyhting but exactly what he states. This summer he went swimming! Or at least, I can't find a hiding meaning behind it. I like swimming.

Earl Scruggs Revue sings it so much better.

Haha, I always thought it being about experience was the really really obvious part. Always seemed very sexual to me :D Just something to think about.

pretty sure its about being a alcoholic...not just the self destructive part, but lines like once when you werent looking i did a cannonball, seem like hes describing all the ways to drown in booze. chances are im wrong tho

this might be a stretch but i think it might be about a relationship.

This summer I went swimming, This summer I might have drowned But I held my breath and I kicked my feet And I moved my arms around, I moved my arms around.

it may have been a first love, but the speaker is talking about how he was all into the relationship at first, and ultimately could have drowned with how deep he got into it. though, he held his breath and kicked, moved about and stayed afloat.

This summer I swam in the ocean, And I swam in a swimming pool, Salt my wounds, chlorine my eyes, I'm a self-destructive fool, a self-destructive fool.

he had different experiences (ie., strokes), different places to wade, etc. while these lyrics are very simple and convey the physical meaning, i think salt my wounds, chlorine my eyes could also mean some sadness in that summer relationship.

i'm a self-destructive fool, well, we've all been there.

I think it's about being an alcoholic, pretty much definitely. First off, he was well known for struggling with alcoholism. And secondly, the metaphor of swimming is so often used to represent alcoholism in songwriting that it's pretty obvious. Here are some points to back it up:

'Salt my wounds, chlorine my eyes, I'm a self-destructive fool'...this shows that he knows it's bad for him, but he still does it anyway

'This summer I swam in a public place And a reservoir, to boot, At the latter I was informal, At the former I wore my suit, I wore my swimming suit.'...this says to me that when he's in public he's being polite and formal by 'wearing his swimming suit', aka keeping his drinking under control, but when he's on his own at the reservoir he's 'informal', which I'm assuming means skinny-dipping, aka being reckless and wild with his drinking.

This is again emphasised in the final verse: 'This summer I did swan dives And jackknifes for you all And once when you weren't looking I did a cannonball, I did a cannonball.'..showing that when in public, he does more elegant and sophisticated moves like swan dives and jackknifes, representing him faking keeping his drinking under control, but then 'when you weren't looking' he does a cannonball, suggesting he loses control of his drinking when nobody is around.