Today, I want to analyze a song that randomly started playing on my speaker the other day. The song is slower by Tate McRae. I love Tate McRae, especially her older stuff. Her new music is good, but it will never compare to the gut-wrenching feeling some of her older albums give me. I mean, I would lay on my kitchen floor and just stare at my ceiling listening to her.
Anyways, back to the song. I remember I had this song on repeat during a very transitional time in my life. I was in the middle of moving during 2020, I had just signed a lease for my first one-bedroom apartment, I had lost two good friends, and there were a couple of boys in the mix I was pondering. I was also dealing with my back issue and changing clients all at the same time.
Everything was changing so quickly. A line in the song goes, “I’ve been falling fast, and you don’t seem to move.” It felt like my body was just moving and going through the motions very quickly, and I never let myself feel the changes that were happening. It was all going so fast, and my emotions felt so stuck. In just three months, I was in a new place, facing back surgery, going through the ins and outs of a new relationship, losing weight, and making a new best friend.
Some things were great in my life, but I was having an internal crisis. She goes on to say, “I’m going through changes/It’s a roller-coaster,” and for me, it felt like it was never-ending…the ride was never-ending. The line from that continues, “But I might be somebody/You might not even know her.” That’s my favorite line. While change is a wonderful thing and, quite honestly, the only thing that’s consistent in life, it’s also one of the most terrifying. Every time I looked in the mirror, I could barely recognize the person I had become.
I couldn’t decide whether the person I was changing into was better or worse. I was also so scared of losing everyone and everything I clung to so hard in life. I lost friendships I thought would last lifetimes over stupid mistakes and lack of communication. Actually, they were lost over pride—me being too prideful to apologize. I thought I was always right and let people walk away left and right, thinking I was too good for them to have me anyway.
I was too prideful to admit that, on the inside, I was so fucking insecure and thought everyone hated me. So, I hurt and hurt and wished so badly everything would slow down just so I could keep up. But as quickly as I was changing, so was everyone else.
She goes on to say, “We could take it slower/Who knows who I’ll be tomorrow/But I hope that you still like her the same.” I’ll admit, this line makes me think of a boy and myself. I thought I had met the love of my life (NO!). He kept asking me to change and I would try harder and harder, hoping he would love the girl that was changing for him. He didn’t, but I was so scared to lose him. I also think of myself—waking up and having no idea who I was and wondering if I even liked myself.
One other line goes, “We might end up strangers somehow/You should get to know me today.” It reminds me that time is limited and not everyone in your life is forever. The more you latch onto something, the quicker it runs away. This song taught me that the more I latched onto my past self, a man, or anything, the more it impeded me from moving forward. This song helped me grieve the person I was in order to come to terms with the person I was becoming. It taught me to accept change, no matter how uncomfortable it made me, even if that means slowing down and just existing through it.
And I’m so glad it started playing the other day to remind me to let things go and just embrace the changes.