Undertow is about two strong, fairly common tendencies that I had/have. One was infernal teenage laziness- realizing that I needed to get off my ass and find a way to motivate myself in order to actually find opportunities instead of expecting them to come to me. The other is that I tend to slowly start emulating the people around me. And there's a general breakup lyric in there because I got a little stuck. :P

Musically, the two biggest contributors to this are Tool and Dead By Sunrise. The guitar loop heavily reminded me of Tool, which I was just starting to get into thanks to my brother. The title references the band's first album of the same name, whilst also being relative to the subject matter (ie. being caught in the current of my own natural tendencies and wanting to break free of it). In particular, the Dead by Sunrise song Crawl Back In (Sometimes I look at my own face / And I don't know who I amI see a piece of everyone I know / Buried underneath my skin) made me take particular notice of the way I act, and it was the lyrics that caused me to take particular notice of it.