What does Swimming Home mean?

Evanescence: Swimming Home Meaning

Tagged: Love [suggest]
Album cover for Swimming Home album cover

Song Released: 2011


Swimming Home Lyrics

Way down
I've been way down
Underneath this skin
Waiting to hear my name again

I'm sorry
Nothing can hold me
I adore you still
If I hear them calling
And nothing can hold me

Way down
(Do you really want me?)
All the way down
(Do...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jan 16th 2012 !⃝

    This song is about an old Gaelic legend of a man who captures a selkie. (A human with the skin of a seal that lives in the sea, similar to a mermaid.) He took a female sekie as his wife and hid her seal skin in the bottom of an old trunk. She loves him, but deep inside her heart she longs to return home and be with her own kind. They have three children together. One day the children are playing and they find her skin, they take it to her and ask her if she knows what it is, she takes her skin and disappears back into the sea. Thats what the song is about. (I'm sorry, nothing can hold me, I adore you still, but I hear them calling... I cannot betray my kind, they are here it's my time... all the way down I will hear your voice but I will no longer understand.) They say that the selkie woman returned to land every once in a while to teach her children selkie healing abilities.

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jan 21st 2012 !⃝

    I believe that in this song she is dying, and there's nothing that she can do to stop it.

    I'm sorry - She doesn't want her loved ones to be upset about their loss.
    Nothing can hold me - She can't stop her own death.
    I adore you still - She loves her family and friends no matter what happens.
    But I hear them calling - She is passing on and she hears her family members and friends greeting her in the afterlife and she wants to be with them.
    And I cannot betray my kind - She's explaining that she can't stay with the living, she has to stay in the afterlife, with her loved ones that already passed.
    They are here it's my time - She has to join the dead and leave the living.

  3. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 25th 2018 !⃝

    Every time i hear this song.. I think of it in this way..( maybe because it made sense when i moved away from home for the first time)
    She left home (wherever home is to her)
    But everyone is calling her back home.. She does not want to hurt whoever it is she adores.
    but, she is swimming home anyways. Nothing can hold her from what she calls home.

    Or she is going back to who she really is on the inside? Maybe she lost herself, But still loves who she is now.. but she just cant be that person anymore.

  4. anonymous
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    Dec 28th 2015 !⃝

    Your in the transition of life and death,..your fading out..You think of heaven but you are going back to the earths original "beings" ...Plankton if you will.
    Some form of reincarnation .life will always find a way..
    As previously stated , all your relatives are their . You will die but they are calling..
    Your going home, your true home.but the one that you love will still be there and you can look upon them with love you just cannot communicate , warnings and love and some such..
    At the end of the day its a goodbye to the one that you love and dont worry,,,,Im safe..
    tosh23

  5. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Oct 20th 2015 !⃝

    i dont know why but every time i listen to this song, i imagine her as a mermaid saying goodbye to her lover which is human. She was uncertain with the human love so she decided to swim back home as 'they' were calling her. Lovely song anyways~!!

  6. anonymous
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    Sep 28th 2014 !⃝

    In my opinion it's a conversation between the soul and the corps at the moment of death.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  7. anonymous
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    Mar 4th 2014 !⃝

    this song I think is about her dying. That she feels like she wants to move on, although she wants to stay with her love, she doesn't fight against her death. This is closely linked to Amy's idea of life after death, as she had said in one of her interview videos. This song is more like to what it feels like to die. but that is just my idea

  8. Emily235
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    Feb 18th 2014 !⃝

    Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure this song is about aliens. She has to leave her lover to join her alien brethren.
    She can't betray her kind? Aliens.
    I adore you still? Her lover.
    But I hear them calling? THE ALIENS.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  9. anonymous
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    Jun 21st 2013 !⃝

    As I did with Never Go Back, I will put my interpretation as a story, cos it is. Start with a man and a mermaid. Never mind how they met or anything. He loves her. She loves him. She stays in human form to be with him. Then, her mermaidian sisters call her home to the sea, and she can remain with him no more. Fade out, ending with them kissing and a shot of the mans tear stained face. Listen and try to see it. You will.

  10. anonymous
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    May 27th 2013 !⃝

    I believe this song is about her desire to go back in tour back to her music, fans (I hear them calling) -her fans are calling her. She may be saying sorry to her husband for leaving his side, but she adores him.(she loves hims, but her fans are calling) nothing can hold her down from her music, her dreams. Shes been missing being on stage, with the fans, performing.
    Amy said on the release of the new album how she missed it all. The meaning of lost in paradise, is that shes in paradise, she's been missing a bit of her old life.
    (I can't betray my kind, maybe she can't deny her band members the opportunity to go again into the world as musicians.)
    Swimming home...swimming back to her life as a musician, swimming to the wave of fans.
    It's my personal interpretation.

  11. anonymous
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    Feb 4th 2013 !⃝

    I interpret these lyrics to express an experience with mental illness. "I've been way down" referring to a debilitating depression which then becomes psychotic.
    The psychotic break involves "hearing them calling" as auditory delusions from a "kind" that she cannot "betray". This "kind" being people or beings from another planet or dimension to which she feels she originates or belongs. "do you really want me?" is consistent with low-self esteem felt by a depressed person. "I was looking to the sky", "They are here", "it's my time" means beings are seen in the sky here to take (or allow her to "swim") back home. It is possible that the singer plans to commit suicide "it's my time", in an attempt to return to her place of origin that she believes in her delusion. She is sorry "I'm sorry I adore you still but nothing can hold me" because she believes, in her delusion that she will be leaving this earth and will no longer see the ones she loves here.

    The acoustic beauty of this song is without equal.

  12. anonymous
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    Aug 3rd 2012 !⃝

    I think this song implies that Amy lives in a house on the other side of a river and she has gone for a walk. It starts to rain and the river starts to overflow, so she realises she will have to swim across the river in order to get home (hence 'Swimming Home'). When she arrives at the river she finds two bread delivery vans waiting for her to return: Hovis and Warbutons. Hovis is her usual brand of bread but she decides that Warbutons may actually be the right brand of bread for her, therefore she must betray Hovis in order to be free ('I cannot betray my kind, they are here, it's my time'). The delivery men from the Warbutons van begin to call her name, and she tells the delivery men from the Hovis van 'I'm sorry, nothing can hold me. I adore you still, but I hear them calling.'

  13. anonymous
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    May 4th 2012 !⃝

    I think it's about suicide. She's asking a friend to forgive her for killing herself, because she can't hold on anymore.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  14. anonymous
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    Jan 7th 2012 !⃝

    I'm very sure it's about the tsunami. Read the lyrics ;)

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  15. anonymous
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    Dec 30th 2011 !⃝

    As many have stated we all have our own interpretations depending on our situations and I've never shared on here before, but I love this song so much I was moved too. Could be completely off, but here's my feelings:
    I do not know anything about Amy and her relationship with her husband, but from my personal life experience I feel that she may feel that she loves her husband but feels somewhat neglected by him. As if he doesn't give enough to her and she has finally chosen to do what she wants to do. She loves him dearly, but her mind is made up and if he tries to apologize and say he is sorry, she's made her decision "But I'll no longer uinderstand" which to me says you won't change my mind again. I'm going back to my kind, my music, my band, my self love. I love you but I can no longer do this.

    Whatever her meaning is for it, the song is just beautiful and I love it dearly.

  16. anonymous
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    Dec 5th 2011 !⃝

    This song is very special I think Amy is talking to her god and she is sorry about her faults when she says"I'm sorry, nothing can hold me"

  17. anonymous
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    Nov 21st 2011 !⃝

    people won't like this one i know. just remember that nobody is "perfect". we are all doing our "best" here on earth. i honestly don't know what this song is about but it made me think of something i read somewhere recently... i could be wrong and i don't know what a "flamer" is but go easy on me i do beg of you, with complete sincerity and kindness.

    "about five or six years ago we were getting to know each other and one summer afternoon i was sitting on the edge of the swimming pool and beautiful you showed up and you jumped into the pool and you were swimming all around like a little fishy and i remember looking at you and thinking - WOW - i really like you and i hope my crotch isn't in your face right now as you are about the eye level of its whereabouts and you are swimming over to my area and talking to me from the water and your grin is so devilish and your eyes are like mirrors (no- i am not in love with myself- they were just reflecting soo much light) and i am sitting in the hot sun on the edge of the pool atop the blazin cement and i am wearing a mini-skirt and splashing my feet gently in the water and i look down at you so freee in the swimming pool and i think.. come on you adorable thing you, i want you to swim right on in here, just keep on swimming, don't tread water just swim, swim, swim glorious man, swim all the way home to me. but i could never say it or mention it to anyone because it is very private and one of the things the men in my life value as well as honouring me is privacy."

    who knows where i read it or what it means i just thought i'd mention it. for all i know she could have been talking about her grandfather..

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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