Skipping Stones Lyrics - Olivia Wendel

Song Facts:

• Genre: Soundtrack


• Featured on: "Invincible (TV Series)" soundtrack


• Lyricist: Olivia Wendel

Annotations and Meaning:

("Skipping Stones" by Olivia Wendel from Invincible (TV Series)) discusses sadness and a sense of loss and change that come with following your dreams and personally sacrificing those which you may have shared with a loved one. With a soft-flowing melody and self-reflection within the lines, this song reveals inner emotional chaos in reconciling with a partner who departs for moving after his own dreams.
"Skipping stones out on the shore" images an attempt of freezing moments; becomes a metaphor with a short-lived life of its own. It is with this activity, often seeming to be a meditative, tranquil experience in contrast to the movements and noise that most apparently seem to characterize the internal struggle as filled with, which suggests the attempt at finding some calm and understanding in a situation that is inherently distressful.
The shift from a peaceful shared moment on the shore to the sudden declaration in the chorus, "'Til you say you're not coming home / You've got dreams of moving to the coast," makes it possible for listeners to form a bridge between the physical act of skimming stones and the emotional weight of letting go. It extends to the idea of throwing a heart made from stone and questioning the distance and emotional toll that one has to take for separation from a loved one for the purpose of personal dreams.

Their verses are very clear in the moment of rupture, accenting first the silence, then the rain, and the allegorical end of a short distance that was becoming their common road. The image of a journey stopped by rain, together with the motif, symbolizes the natural, painful processes of change and growth commonly attendant upon the evolution of persons.

In this very line, he says, "You say I'll understand when I'm not seven years old / That the promise of life isn't how it was sold," speaking to disillusionment that comes from being an adult and understanding that life does have promises, but that it's way more complicated than what one believes. It speaks to the pain of being left behind but also to the inevitable understanding that comes with growth and time.

"Skipping Stones" is a beautiful story of realization and acceptance that is carefully threaded with the lone journey of growth that ensues a parting of ways. It speaks to the deeply ingrained fear of abandonment and complex emotions around watching someone you love pursue their dreams, leaving you to ponder the fragility of shared dreams and the strength it takes to forge new ones of your own. Austere in feeling and with reflective lyrics, it tenderly and sincerely peers into the distances human beings can put in their goals for self-actualization, from physical to emotional.