Dissect - S9E5 - Self Care by Mac Miller

Episode Date: November 2, 2021

We continue our season-long analysis of Mac Miller’s Swimming with its fifth track, “Self Care.” Shop Season 9 merchandise here. Follow Dissect on Tiktok, Instagram, and Twitter. This season includes discussion of substance misuse and addiction. For resources on these topics, visit spotify.com/resources. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At the end of our last episode, we talked about the unsettling conclusion to Swimming's fourth track, Perfecto. It's here that Mac Miller seems to personify his relationship with drugs. He describes getting into a car driven by a woman, the metaphor being he's taking a trip, a drug trip, one that makes him feel put back together. Bare feet running late, her car started even though the only thing that she's driving a hard bargain. More important is I'm kind of sort of out of door, but she put me back together when I'm out of Order. Perfect. Mack's declaration of perfect is both sincere and ironic.

He feels perfect while high, but we know he knows this solution is far from perfect long term. The chords played beneath Mac mirrors this dualism. When he says perfect, we get perfect pleasant harmony. But rather than ending with perfection, a dissonant chord follows, growing more and more intense until the song ends, ominously unresolved. Perfect. This harshness is created by an F-sharp and, in the bass and an F in the treble.

Musically, there's a few ways we could resolve this tension if we wanted, and one of them would be by playing a G chord of some kind, as this would allow the F sharp to resolve up to a G, the closest neighboring note next to it. This G chord resolves the tension, and guess what chord Swimming's next song begins with? The opening moments of self-care resolve the cliffhanger ending of Perfecto, and as we'll find out in today's episode,

this is just one of many connections that bond these two parallel songs together. Indeed, at the end of perfecto, MacMiller got into the car to take a trip, and in self-care, we find out where he goes. From Spotify, I'm Cole Kushna, and this is Dissect, long-form musical analysis broken into short digestible episodes. Today we continue our serialized examination of MacMiller swimming with its fifth track, Self-Care. Self-care is split into two large parts, each with different writers and producers. Part one was produced by DJ Dah He and begins with a warped, heavily filtered synth of some kind.

Like every song on Swimming so far, this main harmonic part sounds like it's submerged under water. And as I mentioned at the top, the first chord of this progression can be interpreted as a resolution to the dissonance that ended perfecto. Whether or not that was intentional or just a happy coincidence in the track sequence, I'm not entirely sure. But from a strictly theoretical harmonic perspective, the connection is certainly there. Self-Cares progression has a total of four chords. It begins on a G minor seventh chord and moves to a D-dominant seventh chord. and then repeats these two chords but with slightly different voicings. The G is stable or consonant while the D is unstable or dissonant.

So we have this constant oscillation between stability and instability, which as we'll see will perfectly match the song's themes. On the second repetition of the progression, we hear two samples. While the first is somewhat inaudible in terms of the words it's saying, the second one clearly says dollars. These two specific samples both come from the song On and On by Erica Badu from Baduism, an album Mac named one of his favorites of all time. The first sample sounds like it's two small snippets spliced together,

while the dollars clearly comes from this passage and on and on. Badu sings, I was born underwater with $3 and $6 dimes. So this is where the dollar sample was pulled from. But let me repeat the lyrics again. I was born underwater with $3.6 dimes. Did you catch it? Underwater like swimming and $3.60 or $3.60 like a circle. In this single line that self-care samples, we find a pretty blatant nod to Max's concept of swimming in circles.

Of course, this isn't the idea Baudu was expousing when creating on and on. She was talking about the idea of supreme mathematics all of the 5% nation movement, which believes that a never-ending circle called the cipher is composed of knowledge, wisdom, and power, each of them containing a value of 120 and equaling 360 when combined. But this is one of my favorite things about sampling, how it re-contextualizes a piece of of an existing work by its use and a new work. Because intentional or not, how can we look up this sample source and not make the connection to Mack's world of swimming in circles? And it's with this in mind that we dive into the song's lyrics, beginning with the opening hook.

Mac begins the hook singing, I switch to the time zone, but what do I know? Spending nights hitchhiking, where will I go? Given the connection between the end of perfecto and the opening of self-care, It's hard to hear these opening lines and not think of Mack getting in the car at the end of Perfecto, a metaphorical description of indulging in the trips of drugs. In this way, the hitchhiking described in self-care feels like a continuation of Mack seeding control to his addictions, allowing drugs to drive, to transport him. If we wanted to extend the connection, switching time zones also continues the time motif that ran throughout Perfecto, where Mac repeatedly asked who has the time, and on the outro,

declared that time don't give a fuck about clocks until they stop. But switching time zones is often a phrase used to refer to changing the time on a clock when traveling. It feels like a line personal to Mack, as he made a few cross-country moves in his career, each of which Mack described as an impetus for change, for a fresh start. There was his first move from Pittsburgh to a Los Angeles mansion in 2012, just as his career was taking off. It was a move that fostered growing independence, freedom, and musical proliferation, as Mac built two working studios into his home. Quote,

everything really started with me having my own studio. That's when everything really got real. That's when I started to make records from scratch by myself, unquote. Dubbed the sanctuary or the Red Room, Mac's studios became a collaborative and creative hub for artists like Schoolboy Q, Tyler the creator, Earl Sweacher, the internet, Absole, Thundercat, Flying Lotus, and Vince Staples.

This studio is also a bunker, where Mac would seclude himself from the world for months at a time. He told Vice Magazine, quote, there's so much space in L.A., you can disappear. But if you're not careful, you can actually disappear, which is not what anybody wants. To have all that space is a pro and a con, depending how you look at it.

But it's really just something within myself. That was the thing that initially, that I liked for a while, but that's more dangerous than actually L.A. is just kind of just sitting there by myself all the time. You know, it becomes like, it becomes toxic. It started by me just sitting inside all day, and then it's like, then you get bored.

Then you're like, well, I could just be high, and I could have a whole adventure in this room. Mack had this reflective perspective after making another move, this time from L.A. to New York. At this point, he essentially became bicostal, but moved to NYC with the intention of making a real change. he told Grantland quote I remember feeling like I got to get the fuck

out of L.A. or I'm finished. Coming back to reality at times, it was too much. But figuring out how to process that and make music again was great. That was another reason I wanted to come to New York to have a chance to newly approach life, to pull back a little bit and live a little simpler. But it's not this wild life all the time, which was something.

David Bowie, I remember my dad told me this, my dad was like, you know, I was watching this. David Bowie documentary and he went through a huge cocaine phase and then he moved to New York and got a really nice apartment and just hung out and lived. I was like

yeah dad you know but what the hell was the point of that did you move to New York? You switch up your environment. Mac would eventually move back to L.A. where the majority of swimming was created but Matt kept going back and forth with rebirth always on the other

side. It's the kind of movement that characterizes so much of swimming. We're swimming in circles, constantly going through highs and lows, days and nights, disoriented and reeling among the white waters of experiences, always seeking calmer waters. It feels like this notion is what's captured in the opening lines of self-care. Mack delivers two statements about travel. I switch to the time zone and spending nights hitchhiking, and each of them are followed by a question, what do I know, and where will I go? He's moving like we all are, but where is he going? We have to. We have to be a time zone. We have to be able to, have an idea of where we want to go in life, some future that's better than our present.

We do our best to guide ourselves there, but reaching any kind of permanent emotional destination is impossible. Here Mack seems to be surrendering to the whims of the road, the interconnectedness between its many rides and his fellow travelers. Mack then starts thinking about what he could do instead of hitchhiking, singing, I could fly home with my eyes closed, but he'd get kind of hard to see. That's no surprise, though. Mac flying alludes to getting high, with flying home, seeming to suggest comfort or habit. This route being kind of hard to see, ties into the drug analogy, referring to the blurred or warp perspective of inebriation.

This feeling is something Mac knows all too well, implied by the line it's no surprise, though. This ties into the idea of flying home. Usually we all know the way home so well that we can do it with our eyes closed, so to speak. It seems Mac's trips are having him feel further and further away from home. I remember, yes, I remember, yes, I remember it all. Swear to hype you too tall. So like September I fall, down below.

Now I know that the medicine be on call, yeah. When it's feeling like you hot enough to milk, yeah. Can't trust no one can't even trust yourself, yeah. And I love you, I don't love nobody else, yeah. Mac begins the first verse rapping, climbing over that wall. I remember, yes, I remember yes, I remember it all. Mac seems to be reflecting on the numerous obstacles or walls he's overcome, be them external or internal. Climbing is an ascension and evokes the idea of Mac working his way up the music industry.

This industry idea makes a lot of sense in light of I Remember being repeated three times in a row, as Mack's personal music label was Remember Music. He could also be nodding to his 2013 song, Remember, which documents one such wall Mac had to climb, which was losing his childhood friend Ruben Eli Matroni. Mac recorded, remember, immediately after Matroni's funeral services, vulnerably capturing his raw emotions. This continues the threat of Mack looking back on his life, but this life moved fast. As Mack said, he's remembering at all that along with his climb, his ascension, there's been lost.

Both exist simultaneously, and Mack is bound to look down, which he does in the next line, swear the height be too tall, so like September I fall. The background vocals here repeat down, down, down, while descending in pitch, providing a bit of text painting, which is what it's called when the music reflects the lyrics being performed. Given the previous nod to his music career, this line could be a reflection of Mack's struggles after achieving the heights of celebrity and success. A strange dichotomy he often explained in interviews as he attempted to grapple with his evolution, use of substances, and public perception.

I had a drug problem, you know, for a long time. It wasn't just in music, but I definitely was going through a drug problem. And I think it was more of my state of mind. I was just pretty depressed. As everyone. Even while successful? Yeah. I mean, I think it started.

With success. Yeah. How do you explain that to yourself? You're struggling, you're not depressed. Right. Successful, you're depressed. You know, it's funny because you talk to people when they say, you know, what do you have to be depressed about?

You have money and da-da-da-da-da. I think, you know, I think what was, you know, I'm 18, 19 years old, going through this for the first time, doing it very differently. Usually just that moment in someone's life where they're trying to figure out who they are and what their identity is, it just gets magnified, you know,

and it becomes a big. bigger thing because you fame is tricky because you read what's said about you then you know what you know to be true and the lines start to blur. In this way the rise was attached to the fall, achieving success paired with feeling

lower, getting high tied to the come down. The simile like September I fall uses fall as both a reference to the autumn season and Max descent from heights. The word September also contains the phonetic timber as in the thing lumberjacks say when trees fall. This line is yet another use of weather-related rotations and swimming,

as Mack uses the climate as a symbol of cycles and change. Fall in particular is a transitional stage between the heat of summer and the cold of winter. Mack then wraps, down below, Now I know, that medicine be on call. In the background, we hear rapper J.I.D. Adlib saying, Gimmy, Gimmy. Here, Mack seems to be describing a kind of prescription for the pain of the fall, drugs, which he says he has on call or easy access to. This was reflected of Mack's real life, as after achieving success, he had the money and connections to acquire any drug he wanted and any quantity.

I'm always like, if someone's like, you want to try this, I'm like, yeah, sure. And then it just kind of fucks you up when you have a bunch of money because, like, you try a drug, you like it, then you can buy a lot of it, you know. So I went through about everything. Matt closes out the verse, It's feeling like you hot enough to melt,

can't trust no one, can't even trust yourself, and I love you, I don't love nobody else. This appears to capture the harmful effects of the drugs he uses to self-medicate. Increase body temperature and melting reflect the slurred loss of self caused by drugs, while can't trust no one describes paranoia. I love you, I don't love nobody else relates dependency, continuing the addictive qualities of gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. Clearly there's a pull to the substance.

Mac attempts to use them for healing, but they also destroy, creating a destructive cycle of dependency, a constant rise and fall, an oscillation between consonants and dissonance, just like the chords he wraps over. Tell them they can take that bullshit elsewhere. Self care. I'm treating me right. Hell yeah. We're gonna be all right. Mac transitions into the song's pre-chorus rapping, Tell them they can take that bullshit elsewhere. Self-care, I'm treating me right. Hell yeah, we're going to be all right.

Like we heard throughout Perfecto, this section is at once ironic and sincere. In the ironic deconstructive reading, tell them they can take that bullshit elsewhere is the dismissal of people trying to help him, or telling him he has a problem, especially after we just heard Max say he couldn't trust anybody and pledged devotion to drugs.

In this light, self-care is the self-medication of substances, with treating me right continuing the doctoral use of medicine be on call at the end of the first verse. In this reading, We Gonna Be Our Right seems to refer to his belief that he's going to be our right if he keeps using to make himself feel better. It's an example of indulging in vices and labeling it self-care as a justification. This ironic, debilitating version of self-care is bound to lead to Mac falling again and again. At the same time, this passage could be interpreted as sincere, as Mack reacting to the low point at the end of the verse. Here, tell them they can take that bullshit elsewhere is a call for drugs, bullshit, to be taken elsewhere,

so that he can take care of himself and be all right, free of his destructive dependency. Both of these readings are present in the same moment. Mack is simultaneously ironic and sincere about his ability to change, his ability to take care of himself. This simultaneity of emotion and thinking has been one of the most prominent themes on swimming thus far. go around in circles enough, fast enough, and you'll start to feel like you're everywhere at once. The oscillation between the decision to succumb devices or the decision to toss them aside become so frequent that they happen concurrently in the same breath. Thus, the dualistic idea embedded in the title Self-Care is very similar to the previous two

song titles. What's the Use is both a grand existential question and a dismissal of questions themselves, while Perfecto is an acceptance of imperfection as perfect. After a representation, petition of the self-surrendering chorus, vocal guest Dev Hines, aka Blood Orange, joins the track, providing a hazy, obscured look into our travels. It's hard to make out, but Dev Hines sings, been on the road, I don't see it, out on the road, I don't see where I'm going. These foggy vocals match the lyrical content, another instance of word painting on the track, illustrating the vision of an obscured path.

Continuing the road symbolism, this reveals Mack doesn't know what's ahead of him or exactly where he's going, tying into the idea of hitchhiking, not being in control of the wheel. But given these lyrics come from a guest vocalist, it feels like an illustration of a shared condition. None of us know what's going to happen tomorrow. We can't see exactly where we're going. We might have some idea of where we'd like to go, but the road there is incredibly unpredictable, constantly changing directions, influenced by forces far beyond our control. And so we do what we can to see as best as we can, knowing that if we want to get anywhere at all, We've got to keep moving.

More on that, right after the break. Welcome back to Dissect. Before the break, we heard the foggy vocals of Dev Hines expressing our obscured vision of the road ahead. But like we all do, Matt keeps moving despite not fully knowing his destination, taking what he can from the signs along the way. Yeah, I be reading them signs,

I'm saying, I've been losing my, I've been losing my mind. Get the fuck out the way. Must be this how to play. It must be nice up above the lights. Matt What a lovely life that I made Yeah I know that feeling

Like it's in my family tree Yeah That Mercedes drummed crazy I was speeding Somebody saved me from myself Yeah Tell them they can take that bullshit elsewhere Matt continues the road

And driving metaphor Rapping I've been reading them signs I've been losing I've been losing I've been losing my mind While he may not be able to see where he's going exactly

He can read the signs Along the road He's putting the pieces together, coming to an understanding that the road he's taken has him losing his mind, with losing implying that he is also lost in his travels. Mack's repetitive delivery of I've been losing my mind is parallel to his delivery of I remember it all from the first verse. He's gone from remembering everything to losing his mind. This is the ramifications of continued drug use, as Mac once reflected, quote,

it just eats out your mind, doing drugs every single day, every second. It's rough on your body, unquote. Mac continues the verse, get the fuck out the way, must be this high to play. It must be nice up above the lights and what a lovely life that I made. The ride continues as Mac pushes obstacles aside, and cleverly, the phrase must be this high to play alludes to the must be this tall to ride signs that are posted by many amusement park rides. The ride of his car is thus compared to the ride of a rollercoaster, itself a journey of highs and lows, and a luring simulation of danger that gives us a unique thrill. We also recognize Max's clever phrasing, Must be this high to play, as in must be this high on drugs,

to enjoy the lovely life above the lights he describes in the next line. Max's thoughts of what it must be like above the lights also calls to mind the lights of fame, whether it be the exposure of tabloids, the flash of paparazzi cameras, or just the general glitz and glam attributed to celebrity. This then is a desire to be unseen, to be so high that he can look down and say,

what a lovely life that I made. This reflection on Mack's entire life while he looks down from an elevated state also alludes to the afterlife. So while Mac is reveling in this lovely life, he's simultaneously considering the joy of being released from mortal coils. Mac then says, I know that feeling like it's in my family tree. Science has found that our genetic structure, passed down from our family, does play a role in things such as addiction or mental health. Mac then follows with one of the most talked about lines on the entire album, that Mercedes drove me crazy, I was speeding. Someone saved me for myself. We've previously discussed the symbolism of cars, speeding, drugs, fame, and the road,

but this line in particular stands out for many due to the context of swimming's release. Shortly after the public announcement of his breakup with Ariana Grande, Mac Miller was arrested for driving under the influence after crashing his Mercedes-Benz G-wagon into a power pole. He left the scene on foot and was later picked up at his house, immediately admitting what he had done. It was a public low point. On the surface, a sign that Mack was in a downward spiral. But Mac himself told a different story.

When asked about the way the themes from his earlier work were popping up and swimming, Mac told Craig Jenkins, quote, Stuff like that always happens with my music. These themes will just connect because of a state of mind I was in. The shit always happens to me. I'll say a line like, that Mercedes drove me crazy I was speeding. I made that song way before the shit went down,

but that shit just connects. You just have to get out of your own way, and everything will just connect for itself. I've been working on this album for two years. It frustrates me that people take something and put it into this small window narrative, but I also understand it. I'm not mad at them for it. It's kind of like, the story writes itself. How can you expect people not to? Unquote. And so when Mack initially wrote and recorded that Mercedes drove me crazy I was speeding, it was likely just one more lyric in a long line of his that combined driving, speeding, being wealth, that specific Mercedes G-Wagon, and drugs. As we covered on hurt feelings, that car was a strong, heavy symbol in his mind.

It was his first massive luxury purchase, and it seemingly became a reminder of his exploits and foolishness. It was his ready answer when asked about spending money. Like we spent the most money, I bought a, spend $170,000 on a car. It's stupid. What kind of car? G-wagon. It's nice, but it's...

I should have least. And while he makes light of it for Larry King here, the G-Wagon was a potent representation of Mack making a decision to somewhat recklessly imbibed in the luxuries of fame. On his 2014 song, Here We Go, from Faces, Mack reckoned with survival's guilt and his own failures, criticizing himself for spoiling himself without helping those he supposedly loves back home.

After lamenting the deaths of kids he grew up with to gun violence and drugs, Mac drives to his partner's parents' house in the house. hood while driving a new BMW, as if that's okay. While this isn't the Mercedes, it's a parallel situation, Mack realizing that by indulging in his success, he's separating from his roots and potentially being selfish. It's a tricky spot to be in. He wants to enjoy his spoils, but he can't shake the feeling that he isn't doing enough. Even the song Objects in the Mirror employs the car as a representation of senseless luxury tied to drug dependency. Can you hide away? Can you hide away?

Sound to silence say, oh, just watch you. I kind of find it strange how the towns have changed. I wish we could go and be three once. The desire here is for Mack to leave the world in the rear view, as simple objects in the mirror, so that he might enjoy the free ride offered by drugs. As we covered on hurt feelings, the imagery of driving recklessly in his vehicle of wealth

was a symbol for how money and success had led him to live. living dangerously. So while Mac wrote the Mercedes drove me crazy line before his infamous DUI, the DUI falls under the same theme he's been talking about for years. As Mack said himself, that shit just connects. Dude, the DUI thing, a lot of people hit my phone in there, like, because I have a past with all that stuff. Right. Everyone's like, yo, you must be, like, the story painted itself, you know, it's too easy to be like, oh, here he goes, back to what we, You know what I mean back to what we're used to. What did happen?

You ever feel like invincible? I lived a certain life for 10 years and faced almost no real consequence at all. I had no version of the story that didn't end up with me being fine. Yeah, I made a stupid mistake. I'm a human being. Like drove home drunk, but it was the best thing that could have happened. best thing that could have happened. I needed that. I needed to run into that light pole and literally like have the whole thing stop. Understanding that the story of self-destruction paints itself,

Mack professes that the accident was a learning moment. As he framed it, no one was hurt and he felt a real, tangible consequence from his actions. Letting drugs take the wheel led him to the crash, signaling that the need for change was undeniable. This understanding of the incident was what he told the public to say that he was okay. Even his Rolling Stone interview after the accident was titled, Mac Miller wants you to know he's okay. You get the urge and the itch to tell people, don't worry, I'm okay, don't worry, I'm okay.

Because, you know, like, I have people that care about me and fans that love my music, and it's a beautiful, a beautiful relationship with them, of people who have been with me through being a 19-year-old, wide-eyed kid to being a self-destructive, depressed drug user, to, you know, making love music, to all these different stages. And then they see something like that and they worry. So your first reaction is, let me tell them I'm cool. Yeah, your first reaction is to think about the well-being of others, which is kind of crazy when you should be actually just concentrating on yourself to some

degree. But I understand. But you just realize you have time. Yeah. Do you mean? It's like, it's like there will be a time to address those things, but everything is, you know, be fine. Here, Mac expresses a sense of faith, faith in time, in the transformative ability of change, process, and the future. While this is true to an extent, when it comes to something as dangerous as drug addiction, we need to understand the absolute reality that addiction perpetually threatens to take away the opportunity of time. And this is what makes Mack's following line so unbearably devastating. Somebody save me for myself. In light of Mack's fate, I'm not even sure what to say about this line, except that here and throughout his discography, Mack displayed an understanding of

the dangers he put himself in. And if there's anything we can take away from Mack's tragic, untimely death, is that the time is now, today, to seek help if you are struggling with addiction. You don't have to pretend to be okay. It's okay not to be okay. It's okay to ask for help. And if you need, you can visit Spotify.com slash resources for information on how to seek help. As self-care continues, we get a slightly altered version of the song's pre-chorus. Immediately after asking for help, Matt quickly paves over it with a slightly altered version of the pre-chorus, singing, tell them they can take that bullshit elsewhere, self-care, we're going to be good, hell yeah, they letting me go.

The biggest difference here from the first time around is the absence of the line I'm treating me right and the addition of they letting me go. Still, the part remains dualistic. The dark reading is that after telling people trying to help him to take that bullshit elsewhere, Mack thinks he can take care of himself and be let go to his own devices. On the other hand, we can see this as a decision to make a positive change. On the song, Hurt Feelings, Mac decides. being on drugs as always into some bullshit and out of line.

So this time, when he wants the bullshit taken away, he could be deciding to separate himself from that which would hurt him. And they letting me go becomes a description of the drugs letting go of their grip on him. As the final rendition of the hook ends, Mack rolls out of this state and into another. While he's been hitchhiking, allowing for substances to take care of him, his travels caused change when we experience a turning point with him, a crystallizing moment of arrival.

Dubbed Oblivion, this second half of self-care was produced by ID Labs and nostalgic. This part was produced independently from the first and later stitched together by Mack and his team. From a musical perspective, it's not hard to understand why Mack might have heard a connection between the two. Both feature nearly identical drum kits, which we can hear clearly when played back to back. Here's the drums on part 1, and now the drums on part 2. The chord progressions in both are somewhat similar too. Both contain four total chords, both contain rich seventh chords, and both are played on airy, spaced out synths.

The similarities between the two parts make them feel related, but different enough for the second part to feel like a real moment of arrival. The two biggest differences is that they are in different key signatures and that the tempo or speed of the second part is about 20 beats per minute slower than the first. So knowing these differences, it's worth looking into how exactly Mac and his team made the transition between these two beats smooth and impactful, as simply budding them together would result in a pretty clunky transition. What they do is actually pretty simple. If you listen to the final section of Part 1's chorus, you'll notice that they slowly start phasing out the drums.

First, they remove the snare drum and hi-hats, so mostly what we hear is kick drum. Then they remove the kick drum, so by the time Mac says, roll out, what we hear is primarily his vocals only. Because the word roll sustains a full measure without another rhythmic instrument behind Mack keeping the beat, it obscures the song's pulse just enough to kind of blur the lines for a second, so that when the new beat comes in slower and in a new key, it feels jarring but not so much that we're taken aback in a negative way. It's just enough chaos to surprise us and just enough order to make it feel like it belongs. Mac begins the new section,

repeating, I didn't know, reeling in the aftershock of the beat switch. He then begins rapping, didn't know what I was missing. Now I see a little different. I was thinking too much, got stuck in oblivion. Recall that the track began with Mack asking, what do I know? And now here in the opening moments of part two, he seems to reveal that what he knows is that he didn't know. For clarity of definition, oblivion is the state of being unaware or unconscious of what's going on, often due to inebriation. As Mac laments here, he now sees he was missing. He was missing. something by thinking too much and becoming stuck in his own head. Thinking too much got stuck in oblivion is also kind of a paradox. We're faced with so many problems,

and human beings have survived in large part by using our brains to solve these problems. In other words, evolution has taught us to think in order to survive. But if we think too much, we can get in our own way. Our minds are capable of playing cruel tricks on us, paralyzing us into inaction. This overthinking can be characterized as anxiety, and when Mack calls this oblivion, as in the inability to act, he aptly characterizes the self-destruction we're capable of inflicting on ourselves. Mac then continues, I got all the time in the world, so for now I'm just chilling. Plus, I know it's a beautiful feeling in oblivion. Here it seems Mac has found another state of oblivion, a peace of mind that comes with being

able to relax, breathe, and enjoy the moment, unpressured by the anxiety of the mind. This theme is obviously something we've heard throughout swimming thus far, but it's also an idea that Mack thought about for years. Here's Mac at age 19, answering a journalist who asked, if you had a microphone powerful enough that everyone in the world could hear you, what would you say? I'd say, stop thinking so much. That's what I would say. I feel like the world thinks too much. I feel like if they just spent more time living and just not thinking, but that's me, You know, I don't think ever, and I seem to be doing okay. I'm a happy guy.

I don't know. I just feel like a lot of good could come from people just going off their gut and going off their basic instinct and going off what their heart tells them rather than what when they think about it, what they feel they should do. But, I mean, that goes both ways because there's some shyshees-y motherfuckers in here that if you just don't use your head, then they'll, you know. But for the most part, I think that some people just need to stop thinking about everything they do and just do it. But who wants to take advice from a 19-year-old kid?

Nearly a decade before swimming, Mack here is preaching the same philosophy we've heard him attempt to live by throughout the album, which perfectly captures the concept of swimming in circles, the idea that our struggles are cyclical, that even though we know how we want or should act, we can't always live it out. We might achieve it for a little while and then fail and have to find our way back, swimming in circles. We also have to recognize that Mack pronounces thinking too much like taking too much, as in indulging in too many substances to have any sense of the world, falling into the oblivion of an altered mind state.

Given the focus of drugs in the song's first half, this allusion to sobriety also illustrates the idea of swimming in circles, where the battle with addiction can be a perpetual cycle of getting clean and using. In this way, the two-part structure of self-care is its, itself a mini loop, or we find Mac indulging and then getting clean. This seems to tie into the driving aspect of the first half and Mack imagining himself flying home. He's no longer hitchhiking but driving himself, which again seems to point to sobriety, where substances no longer have control of the wheel.

The sun getting up slowly evokes a fresh start, with its slow ascension back into normalcy seeming like a metaphor for Mack's slower pace, his piece, a stark contrast to the speeding of his Mercedes. We can actually find a near-perfect match for these lyrics in a 2012 interview, when Mack was asked about how he feels coming home after long stays out on the road touring. And I think I just need to spend some time, like, living life, you know? My life is just consisted of in non-stop work that it would be nice to be able to like... Like yesterday, I just, I woke up at 10.30 p.m. Because I slept all...

I went to bed at like 11 a.m. and woke up at 10.30 p.m. and I just literally just got in my car and just drove around the city for like an hour just listening to music and it was just nice to be home and look at all the places. As Mack desires to be able to simply live his life, he basked in the simple pleasure of driving around his hometown, of being in control of his direction in a comfortable, familiar place.

Mac then sings, I disconnect and upload, watch it spin around, we just spin it around, let's go and travel through the unknown. The disconnect is seemingly from technology as Mac opts for simpler pleasures, allowing himself to upload or transfer data, representative of living life and gaining experiences. Mack then continues with a bit of a turn singing, We play it cool, we know we fucked though.

You keep on saying you in love, so tell me, are you really down? Are you really down? At first this feels like a recognition of our mortality, of all of us being fucked, but playing it cool. But then he brings a relationship into question, using phrases that pretty blatantly, call back to the previous track Perfecto. There, Mack repeatedly played it cool, even though he was bugging, and had referenced a relationship going down. It appears that Mack's new state of oblivion is beginning to crumble a bit, as stresses and trust issues arise once again. This leads to Mac feeling like he needs to go back inside, which as we've heard throughout swimming, comes with his own set of issues for Mac.

We spend our nights all liquor off on the morning sound. Can you feel it now? Olivia, yeah, yeah. Mac ops for shelter singing, Let's go back to my crib and play some 45s. It's safe in here. I know there's still a war outside. The solo is here is music in the form of 45 RPM vinyl records,

which are typically singles. This is where Mac feels safe from the war outside. Here we have a picture of why Mac is so attracted to staying in, whether it be in his mind or his studio. The outside world, while a place for him to shine and experience life, is depicted as a war. Grand and vague all at once, this could refer to any number of qualities of our chaotic, conflicted world, which I'm sure all of you are very aware of these days. Mack recoils into a safe space, isolated but sheltered.

While not entirely unhealthy in and of itself, we've heard throughout swimming how staying inside can lead Mack into some dangerous habits, specifically thinking too much and using drugs, the very things we thought he had escaped in the opening moments of this second half. This leads to the following line, we spend our nights all liquored up, our mornings high. Can you feel it now? Oblivion. Staying inside has led Mack to indulge in vices. This is the danger of not facing the outside world's problems.

Sooner or later, you'll have to face the inside problems, and Mack falls back into the very oblivion he sought refuge from just moments ago. It's a somewhat crushing moment in light of all that we know, but it's also one again that perfectly captures the experience of swimming in circles, of heading in one direction only to find yourself right back where you started. Just as Perfecto's second half took a dark turn and then ended somewhat ominously with a swelling, dissonant chord, we find something similar at the end of self-care second half. The song ends with the drums dropping out and a brassy synth taking over the chord progression.

Here's the final chord the synth plays. This is what's called a diminished chord, which is the most dissonant chord as far as three-nosticant. note standard core types go. It's full of musical tension that creates a desire for resolution, which we don't get, leaving the song unresolved or open-ended. The unsettling feeling of this outro feels like an appropriate match for the apparent relapse described in the song's closing moments. But this feeling of unresolved that keeps showing up and swimming also feels pretty fitting to the recurring themes we have been noticing, the idea of life as a continual journey, full of phases both high and low that aren't so cleanly divided. Rather, they bleed into one another so quickly,

that they begin to feel simultaneous. We experienced one such rapid change at the end of self-care, where it seemed like Mac was enjoying the oblivion of being outside, taking the wheel, the sun rising on a new horizon, clean and free. But in a blink of an eye, he was right back inside, fearing the war outside, indulging. Conclusions. The two-part structure of both self-care and perfecto reflects the dualism of sincerity and irony in both their titles and themes. Mac is falling apart on these tracks, realizing the inherent imperfection of everything, including his own poor habits. Yet he knows he has to accept it, knows he has to forgive himself and try to do better. And it's this kind of transparent honesty and faith that has emerged as we've immersed

ourselves deeper and deeper into the world of swimming. And it begs the question, what if we are all as honest as Mac Miller tries to be? What if we too mapped out our shortcomings and strengths, our goals, and our failures, and really shared them with each other? The music of Mac Miller and its continual evolving attempt at expressing the spectrum of the human experience is the kind of honesty that we should all strive to achieve, a kind of honesty that is the foundation of self-care. Indeed, to address our problems, we need to be truthful about what they actually are. The ironic reality is that sometimes the things that make us feel good can be the worst things for us in the end. We all have habits we don't approve of. Maybe that's spending too much time on our phones,

maybe that's not exercising enough or eating as healthy as we could, or maybe it's something as serious as drug abuse. Bad habits turn detrimental when we aren't able to impose limitations on ourselves, when our bad habits take the wheel and we suddenly find ourselves living in life we never intended, becoming a person we might not necessarily like. But self-care is action motivated by the belief that you can do better, that within you exist a better version of yourself, ready to be realized. Self-care is taking back control of the wheel.

actively self-assessing and making improvements to cultivate that better version. Self-care is accepting the inevitable relapses in our pursuit toward a destination we can't always see, accepting that we will never be perfect, but maintaining faith that no matter how many mistakes we've made, no matter how loss we might feel, our time on the road is a gift. The fact that we're still here means there's an opportunity to be better, to amend our mistakes, to find our way,

to take care of ourselves and each other a little better than we did yesterday. This episode of Dysect was written by Camden Ostrander and me. If enjoyed today's episode, please tell a friend about the show or share on social media and tag at Dysect Podcast. It really helps. Women in merch for this season is available at Dysectpodcast.com, which is linked in the show notes. Theme music by Birocratic, instrumental recreations by Andrew Atwood, audio editing by Eric Bass and me. All right, thanks everyone.

Take care of yourselves.