# slow down my thoughts
I often find myself completely enamored with a song, sometimes for days or even weeks on end. I'll have it stuck in my head and I'll play it over and over on repeat.
I call these case studies.
Usually it starts with me falling in love with the song itself. The melody, the beat drop or some part of it catches my attention enough for me to play it on repeat.Then I'll look into the lyrics and I fall in love with it all over again, which is exactly what happened with Zachary Knowles slow down my thoughts.
# Release
The song was released on his EP feelings on September 25, 2018.
# Discovery
I discovered it on spotify, probably from one of my Discover Weekly playlists, and then re-discovered it going through my liked songs. In this case, I was tripping pretty hard and I really resonated with this song.
One line in particluar stuck out to me.
yeah you prayed for me
# Title
When I noticed how much I liked this song, I realized the song title was "Slow down my thoughts". I've been thinking about doing this a lot lately, especially since I just created my blog and I've had time to offload a lot of my thoughts from my headspace. Additionally, I've been reading The Power of Now (opens new window) by Eckhart Tolle and have been practicing observing my thoughts without identifying myself as them.
The act of slowing down my thoughts is particularly significant to me as well due to my past struggles with mental health.
# Lyrics
Usually I'll reflect upon song lyrics via Genius (opens new window). But this time, I actually found the lyric video on YouTube since I was listening to music on YouTube on my computer instead of Spotify. This was because I was using my FreeBSD operating system which doesn't actually have spotify on it. Usually I'll control my spotify instance on my laptop, but I didn't have my streaming set up configured yet.
Anyway, the lyrics begin with
I just wanna try somethin', try somethin' new
even if it doesn't mean that I'll get to you
When listening to this at first, all I really understood was something along the lines of "doesn't mean that I'll get to you". Perhaps that's one of the reasons why I felt like I could relate to this song. I used to do a lot of things in an effort to "get back to you". I guess it's time now that I'm trying something new.
I previously compared my thoughts as a thundercloud with thoughts manifesting like lightning, which is the same imagery that is evoked in these lyrics:
all the pressure
all the sadness
going through my head
try to focus
i can't help it
put it on you instead
Like lightning, sometimes I can't control them and they eventually return "back to you". Perhaps that's why I need to ground myself through meditation more often. Like a lightning rod, I can redirect my attention to things I focus on if I am indeed grounded.
slow down
is this what happens when it rains now