"Swimming to the Other Side"
Song Review by Harold Wood
Outside the mainstream media, we find that people often like to express spiritual themes to each other. And often that spiritual theme includes a pantheistic dimension, as people turn to nature for solace in an increasingly noisy and hectic world. In Nature, we find, is both our salvation and our responsibility.
As Pete Seeger says, the mass media and the government may control the airwaves and the print media, but they cannot control what people say and sing to each other. Folk music has always been such a means of expression, and with the Internet the ideas and expressions of folk music can spread more rapidly than in the past.
Pat Humphries’ (now 30-year old) folk anthem, “Swimming to the Other Side” has been called by such luminaries as Pete Seeger as one of the best such songs since Woody Guthries’ “This Land is Your Land.” Like that song, it never played on commercial radio; both songs were just picked up by people, and sung from place to place. If you haven’t heard this song yet, it is as close as your computer or local library’s Internet station.
Right from the beginning, this song speaks to a heart-felt connection with one’s inner being in connection with the universe and all of life:
We are living ‘neath the great Big Dipper
We are washed by the very same rain
We are swimming in the stream together
Some in power and some in pain
What a wonderful message to remember, when the human political world seems so much nation against nation, religion against religion, people against people!
The song goes on beyond the theme of world unity, however, to express a deep spiritual connection with the Earth itself. The chorus of “Swimming to the Other Side” embodies a very powerful pantheistic refrain:
We can worship this ground we walk on Cherishing the beings that we live beside
How powerful are these twin ideas, and how different from what the majority of our governmental and religious leaders want us to believe! These two ideas are posited in the song not as ideology, but in the sense of sharing a marvelous discovery. Its expression is made in defiance of top-down religious and governmental strictures saying we have to worship imaginary beings in the sky, not real ones on the ground; and that far from cherishing our fellow beings, laws like the Endangered Species Act must be repealed or reformed to allow business-as-usual to proceed unimpeded by any thought of respect or compassion for others! It is shared as a discovery, as a starting point for “swimming together” on our planet.
The melody, rhythm, and lyrics of “Swimming to the Other Side” are combined in this song in an extraordinary way.
Recently (2004) featured on National Public Radio, a larger audience is newly aware of this song, first written in 1992.
The song comes out in an effortless way, yet contains so many words with so many commas that Humphries’ at first worried that nobody would sing the song. Instead, it has become a standard at folk festivals, pagan song-books, and was recently featured on National Public Radio.
It is an underground anthem, being sung, swapped, and improvised in the folk tradition.
It is hard to use the written word to discuss melody and rhythm, but those are as important as lyrics when it comes to staying power. One classically-trained musician says the melody and rhythm of “Swimming” is reminiscent of the internally-growing power of Pachelbel’s Canon, one of the best-loved pieces of classical music, which begins slowly and lightly and swells to a major anthem.
As each part of the lyric surfaces, the depth of expression seems to grow:
I am alone and I am searching
Hungering for answers in my time
As many philosophers, natural historians, and religious leaders have learned, solitude is necessary in order for anyone to listen to the universe. Once the singer fully achieves quiet and solitude, only then can she proceed:
I move forward with my senses open
Imperfection it be my crime
In humility I will listen,
We’re all Swimming to the Other Side
What a marvelous thought, especially here in our world where seemingly everyone, religious or anti- religious, Christian or Islamic, Left or Right, all seem to insist that they have a monopoly on the Truth and want everyone to adhere to their message! But Humphries’ expresses something much closer to the truth – that we need to realize that we are all imperfect beings, that we have to move forward with “senses open” – which I take to mean not only open eyes but also an open mind. With humility we listen. What can we hear with this kind of attitude, with all senses open?
The lyrics flow on in a rising crescendo, moving back and forth from the “I” to the “we” and back again, flowing onward with rhythm and harmony, identifying the singer as singular and plural. As the song proceeds, one is filled with a feeling one sometimes finds hard to find these days: optimism.
One commentator thought the song sounded like religion, and it does indeed touch the soul. But songwriter Pat Humphries’ says it is politics – it came out of a sense of despair turning into hope during the first Bush Administration. Years later, now more than ever, we need this kind of inspiration. The best thing about “Swimming to the Other Side” is that it is not just a “feel good” song, but instead is something that will leave you feel changed forever after singing it.
On our journey, Humphries says:
I am gathering the tools together
I’m preparing to do my part
So the message is one not only of unity, of swimming together under the same skies, but one of intensely personal conviction and action. Each of us has the glorious freedom to choose how we will do our part.
Pete Seeger says that some of Pat Humphries songs will be sung in the 22nd century, they’re that good. I encourage you to go to the Internet or get Pat’s album Hands and listen to the song first, with its rhythm and melody, before you read the lyrics. Although the song has been recorded by several other artists, including Lui Collins, Elaine Silver, and Thomasina, I recommend Pat Humphries’ original version on her album Hands which can be previewed on the websites below.
REFERENCES:
‘Swimming to the Other Side’
The Evolution of Pat Humphries’ Modern Folk Anthem NPR Radio
Listen / Buy the Song (from Pat Humphries’ “Emmas Revolution website.
Originally published in Pantheist Vision, Vol. 24, No.1 (September, 2004)