Swimming in the Deep End: a Reflection on Mac Miller's Greatest Work

On September seventh, 2018, Malcolm James McCormick, better known by his stage name, Mac Miller, tragically died of a fentanyl overdose. This came only one month and four days after the release of his final album released during his lifespan, Swimming. Sure, to most people, Swimming is just another hip-hop album. But in reality, it’s so much more than that. Swimming is Mac’s magnum opus. Swimming is every expression of Mac’s fears, doubts, and feelings towards the future, and when you look closer into the lyrics and themes of the album, Mac’s tragic death barely a month later becomes all the more heart wrenching.

In the first few seconds of Swimming, Mac’s mental state and thought process are already shown to the listener. The first track of the album, “Come Back to Earth,” opens with the lines “My regrets look just like texts I shouldn’t send, and I got neighbors, they’re more like strangers, we could be friends. I just need a way out of my head, I’ll do anything for a way out of my head.” These few lines set up the main themes of the albums. Mac has regrets for his past actions, symbolized by “texts I shouldn’t send.” While he regrets his actions in the past, he has a positive outlook to the future and wants to make things better. But even though Mac has a better outlook to the future, he struggles to stop overanalyzing himself and tormenting himself over his regrets in the past, so much so that he would “do anything for a way out of my head.” Swimming is a display of all of Mac’s fears, struggles, and regrets, and these themes carry through every aspect of the album.

Surprisingly, some of the most important aspects of the album come from the title and cover. The title Swimming wasn’t chosen at random. It represents how Mac has to continuously fight his fears, regrets, addictions, and depression. He has to keep going, or keep swimming, and if he stops, he’ll drown. Swimming is the perfect title to represent how Mac feels he can never rest or stop fighting. The cover of the album is also a lot deeper than it looks at first glance. When you look at it for the first time, Mac is sitting in front of a box, and the window at the top of the box makes it appear like he is on a plane. However, when you think about the cover more, it becomes more and more apparent that Mac is actually sitting in a coffin. The cover actually represents Mac after his death. On the cover, Mac is sitting in a suit, which people are often buried in. Even more importantly, Mac has bare, dirty feet, with bare feet of course being a universal symbol for death. When we look outside the window at the top of the box, while it looks like an airplane window, in reality this is likely a glimpse into heaven, after Mac’s death. All of these symbolisms show us Mac’s mental state and how he really might’ve felt his life was going.

While every track on this album is important in showing us something about Mac’s mental state and life, I want to talk about the second to last track on the album, “2009.” “2009” is more or less the story of Mac’s life. In 2010 Mac released K.I.D.S., his breakout mixtape that launched him into fame. 2009 represents Mac’s final year of being an innocent kid, before he entered the world of fame, drugs, and money at only 18 years old. In the song “2009”, Mac says several times “It ain’t 2009 no more.” Mac is reminding himself of how much his life has changed due to fame, how much his life has changed since 2009. He isn’t an innocent kid anymore. Mac has been through drug addiction, heartbreak, tragedy, and constant criticism. He’s changed as a person, and he has to remind himself of that. During the song, he also says “And sometimes I wish I took a simpler route, instead of having demons that’s as big as my house.” Mac’s regrets once again show up as a central theme of Swimming. Mac wishes he hadn’t become a famous rapper. The rock star lifestyle, or more appropriately the rapper lifestyle, tore his life apart. While Swimming does have a positive outlook when it comes to Mac’s drug addiction, he would still go on to die from drugs just a month later. Mac regrets following fame and money, because now he has “demons as big as my house.” “2009” is easily the most important track on Swimming, and arguably the greatest song he ever wrote.

Mac Miller was one of the greatest artists of our generation, and there is no better display of this than his best album and one of the greatest pieces of art of the twenty-first century, Swimming. Swimming is the purest expression of Mac’s regrets, fears, and struggles. Mac has regrets for his actions in the past, most prominently choosing to follow a lifestyle of fame, drugs, and money. He wishes for a better future and has a positive outlook, but at the same time is scared for the future. He continues to struggle with his depression and drug addiction, and tragically he would ultimately lose that battle. Swimming is one of the most important albums ever written, and understanding the themes and messages of the album makes Mac’s death just over a month later even more tragic.