Slipping

"Slipping," written and performed by Eryn Allen Kane, appears on the album Aviary: Act I. The album was made in tandem with Aviary: Act II, each presenting a slightly different feel to the few songs which they contain. In the song, Kane attempts to console a sad friend, telling the story of her struggles in helping that friend out of a rough time. The song asks the audience (that friend, in this case) to realize that in moments when we feel trapped, there exists a bigger, brighter, and a more real world for us to see and appreciate.

Kane frequently makes use of language relating to water in her song. Water at first as an entrapper when Kane says that she's "ditchin' this town 'fore I drown," with the word "drown" serving more than one purpose. The first is that it starts her unifying theme of water throughout the song. Drowning also presents us with an image, a focal point for understanding frustration in a physical context. Her environment is suffocating her, making her feel maybe not just trapped, but lost also, relative to the expansiveness of the sea. Kane also compares her friend to a "tide under the moon," reflecting her emotional movement back and forth. Towards the end of the song, Kane mentions that the friend is "always in the deep end," again drawing us back to the theme of drowning, or being in over one's head through a physical image (though this time in what is probably a pool).

Kane also uses a recurring theme of light. She sings,

Little light, you've lost your glow, you just cry and no one knows
That love isn't your friend, your friends are gone...

Later, she repeats the same phrasing a little differently, saying,

I thought that I would find your glow.
I just cry because I know,
That love is your friend, and that friend is me. 

The "glow" which Kane speaks of gives us an image to assign to what is most likely one's spirit or personality. It is also first presented as more of an intrapersonal concept, where the person is presented as alone and isolated. The second time around, Kane connects herself to the person by changing around the pronouns, shifting the definition of the "glow" to encompass interpersonal aspects.

Finally, Kane repeatedly says that there is "one more open seat" as she ditches her town, also asking the audience to "take [her] hand." These kinds of lines relate directly to the audience through figurative language. The "open seat" provides an interpersonal call of friendship and solidarity, while also showing the relationship and healing process to be a sort of journey with a final destination, as one would use a vehicle for.