Swimming Home

Lee says. “It came from a phase when I was making music that was ethereal and programming driven. Thematically, “Swimming” addresses “crossing over into the next life. It’s the bittersweet acceptance.”

From Evanescene website

Amy does a song on every album for her sister, who passed away. The song seems to be about passing on, but perhaps it's from clinging to her sister in the dead realm and rejoining the living. This is the vibe that i get. Beautiful song.

Turning suddenly dreamy, “Swimming Home” is a a loving goodbye from someone who is dying. When speaking to Kerrang about “Swimming Home” she discussed the song’s meaning. “It’s goodbye,” she said. “It’s partly about the acceptance of death. I love that song because it’s not angry and it’s not perfectly happy. It’s sad but it’s accepting the things in life that are hard — like someone leaving this world and feeling the peace of crossing over.” “Erase This” walks through the landscape of needing to burn it all down and start over.

In the first chorus, it's "But I hear them calling" rather than "if."

The backing vocals in the second verse say "But it's really not me" rather than "No one's really loved me."

I believe this song is told from the perpective of someone who is dying, and is moving on to the other side. They still love the person they're leaving behind, but it's time for them to move on. As the person is dying, they're "waking up" and remembering that their soul is more than the body it's leaving. It's been "way down underneath this skin" waiting to wake up and remember that life goes on even after death.

The song is so dreamy it makes my imagination run WIIIILD. This is beyond random but work with me.

It reminds me so much of transgendered people. If your parents/peers/etc say things like, "Your life would be so much easier if..." then you would you have to make the change all on your very lonesome (swim an ocean all on your own). Look at the song like the true self talking to the wrong sex and wrong gender that the parents/society have tried to build. And you can't hate that person because that's your past--always a part of you "I adore you still..." The lines "I will no longer understand" could mean 'I don't understand the members of the sex I was born as" and "I can not betray my kind"..."I can not pretend to be a boy/girl and act like the other is stupid".

And then "way down underneath this skin is" is obvious...even though I could have sworn she said "weighed down".

Am I the only one who thought this song was sung from the perspective of a mermaid? Heh...it works for me.

I've figured it out!

The song just before this is "Never Go Back" and Amy has confirmed that "Never Go Back" was inspired by the Japanese tsunami that occurred earlier this year. Well, I was listening to "Never Go Back" with that in mind and then "Swimming Home" came on and everything clicked.

"Never Go Back" is from the perspective of someone losing the one they love in the tsunami.

"Swimming Home" is from the point of view of the person drowning. A response to the previous song. It all makes sense.

.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~*~.

My Translation (for simplicity's sake, I'll make it a man and the "Never Go Back" person a woman):

"Way down, I've been way down underneath this skin waiting to hear my name again"

----> He's sinking beneath the water, sinking way down, waiting for someone to help him.

"I'm sorry nothing can hold me I adore you still but I hear them calling and nothing can hold me"

----> He doesn't want to leave his her, but there's nothing that can hold him to this life. He's telling her that he still loves her and that he's sorry that he can't stay, because he's being called to the other side.

Way down, all the way down I will hear your voice but I'll no longer understand

----> Again, he's sinking down, down...he can hear her screaming for him, but the water muffles the sound and he can't understand what she's saying.

"I was looking to the sky when I knew I'd be swimming home and I cannot betray my kind They are here It's my time"

----> He was hanging on, trying to stay afloat, trying to escape. He looked to the sky and knew that he wasn't going to be able to hold on. He was going to die. He was going to sink to the bottom, to what was once his home, now submerged in the ocean waves. His friends and family have already drowned and they're there, waiting for him.

.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~*~.

The Japanese tsunami broke my heart when it happened. I donated what little I could afford to them. So, listening to this song in that context brought me to tears. It's so incredibly sad, because I'm sure this exact scene had actually played out many times during the tsunami.

I understand this as an answer to the lover singing Evanescence's ''Even In Death''. In ''Even In Death'' we have a lover that is lamenting over the fact he/she is left on Earth without her other half (which has apparently died).And in ''Swimming Home'' the died lover,who is between the world of the living and the dead explains that he will always adore his soulmate and would wait for him'/her in between dimensions if only these ''other people from his/her kind werent calling out''.This is either his Family,already passed to the other side and impatient to see their relative or some kind of Reapers or Undead Regulators which cant allow souls to stay in between dimensions for too long.

Nevertheless,epic song,

suicide

im totally with u 'midnightfairy25' but whats the reason behind a song like this?? i mean if we focus in it sounds like Amy has been in a deep dream or a coma or maybe near death experience that she met her sister and told her whats in the lyrics