Daniel Polanco

Professor Seeley-Sherwood

ENG170-29

1 October 2021

Swimming in Circles

Target Audience: Young Musicians/Young Adults

Everyone has their own rough patches in life. Everyone tries to improve themselves or their situation when they notice how they get treated. The album, Circles, by Mac Miller presents the theme of repression, negative thoughts, emotions, and how he copes with them. The album was released approximately two years after his untimely death and previous album, Swimming, that held many of the same themes present in Circles. Throughout his career, Mac Miller struggled with anxiety, depression, and drug abuse, as he was very transparent in interviews and his process when creating his albums. Regardless of his struggles, he has tried to improve his well-being for himself and for the people he cares about.

The album Circles was written while on tour for the album Swimming, the album begins with the title track, and explores themes of feeling lost in the world. Miller explains “I cannot be changed, I cannot be changed, no trust me, I’ve tried.” From the beginning of the song, the audience gets an insight into the mental state of Mac Miller–the feeling that regardless of what he tries to change, he remains the same. On the song Complicated, Miller explains his daily schedule and the struggles that come with it. Throughout the rest of the album, he becomes seemingly more and more transparent to the inner worlds of his psyche and the thoughts that come with it. The song Blue World is more upbeat and exciting, featuring a chopped- up vocal sample by The Four Freshman from 1955. On this song, Mac speaks about how the world has turned him the way he is, and temptations he gets from the devil. However, the song ends on an optimistic note, when he says “Hey, one of these days, we’ll all get by.” Mac Miller managed to relate to many people who struggled with the same feelings of worthlessness and despair. Even before he had gained mainstream popularity, he wrote about his own struggles with drug abuse, and suicidal thoughts. Right after graduating high school and heading into his music career with full force, he struggled with these issues in the darkness. The song Good News grapples with repression–how the people surrounding him only want him to mention the good emotions and forget about everything else. The song is delivered in a way that’s reminiscent of an exhausted child, lazy but concise. I Can See expresses Miller’s understanding of how he is perceived from the outside. The first and second verses of the song are contrasting themes–the former with an optimistic outlook with the latter being Mac Miller’s fall from that optimism.

The next song Everybody, is a cover of Arthur Lee’s song, Everybody’s Gotta Live. In Lee’s version, the song is upbeat with a hopeful outlook on life and the people in it. However, in Miller’s version, he uses a somber piano, mixed with his voice that’s as smooth as butter, a bassline that resonates deep within the audience’s ears, and a drum beat that could make a grown man cry. Woods is a song about a relationship that is broken beyond fixing. In classic Mac Miller fashion, he manages to end on a high note. Although the worst part is over, the best has yet to come. Toward the end of the bridge he sings, “we can only go up, we can only go up.” Miller had a way of viewing the world with rose- tinted glasses, but he was still able to see the red flags. Hand Me Downs deals with the negative thoughts inside of Miller’s head and what he does about them. The song That’s On Me reveals how Miller always manages to blame himself for his mental condition while simultaneously helping other people with the same issues. Miller explains in the song, “that’s on me, that’s on me, it’s all my fault.” The last big moment on the album is the second to last song, Surf, that summarizes his current emotional state while writing the album. It grapples with feelings of loneliness and feeling lost, and ties back to themes from the previous album, Swimming–themes of taking the first step toward improvement, even when the odds are against you. In its entirety, the album Circles juggles themes of self-doubt, mental illness, and loneliness beautifully. Between being painfully relatable, to heartbreakingly sad, the album doesn’t cease to amaze sonically or lyrically. It presents a type of growth in maturity that almost wasn’t present in his previous albums.

Even though Mac Miller seemed to be the shining example of someone improving himself for the better, it didn’t end that way. Approximately a month after his release of his critically and commercially acclaimed album, Swimming, he was found dead in his home in San Fernando, California on September 7, 2018, from an overdose of fentanyl, cocaine, and alcohol. For many devoted fans, he has become a symbol of hope and they can only hope he rests peacefully. Others can only imagine just how impactful he could’ve been if he hadn’t gone so soon. It wasn’t his fault, he just struggled with his own demons, and unfortunately in his case, those demons won and the world became deprived of that beautiful personality too soon.

Works Cited

“Circles by Mac Miller.” Genius, https://genius.com/albums/Mac-miller/Circles. Accessed 28 September 2021.

Miller, Mac. Circles, Warner Records Inc, 2020.