Like A Duck To Water

得过且过 means muddling through as long as one can, without ambitious plans or a strong sense of purpose. It often carries criticism of that attitude. “One day at a time” sounds gentler in English; the Chinese leaves more room for both deliberate ease and resignation.

• Lyric text

潇洒 suggests an unencumbered, stylish ease; 自如 adds being able to act naturally and comfortably. The following insistence that this road was walked by the speaker himself makes the ease an achievement. The song can sound resigned in 得过且过 and proud here without changing its practical aim: retaining control of the scale of one’s life.

• Lyric transcript

过客 is a traveler passing through a place, extended to someone who occupies only a temporary part of a life. The word redraws the relationship: critics who speak as though they own a stake in the speaker are only visitors. It also makes the earlier “road” image social, with people encountered along it but no obligation to keep traveling together.

• Lyric transcript

碗筷 pairs bowl and chopsticks into a household place setting. Refusing extra company becomes a rule about the table: there is no equipment for an additional guest. The preceding “she” makes the space feel occupied rather than empty. The scene’s comfort depends on keeping an intimate household small, not on proving that the speaker needs absolutely nobody.

• Genius community transcript

惦记 can mean keeping someone fondly in mind, worrying about them, or having one’s eye on something one wants. The surrounding refusal of extra company makes the attention unwelcome. English “thinking of me” preserves the openness of the word without deciding whether these people miss him or want something from him.

• Lyric text

The familiar saying continues with becoming a Buddha on the spot: even someone who has done wrong can turn toward good. The lyric stops after laying down the knife, then moves to being at ease and sleeping peacefully. A moral turning point becomes the threshold to an ordinary, restful life.

• Ministry of Education dictionary: 放下屠刀，立地成佛
• Lyric text

如鱼得水 means finding the environment or companion in which one can flourish: the fish finally has its water. The official English title substitutes a duck, an idiomatic choice in English, while the lyric preserves the fish. Here the ideal environment turns out to be a life without interference, with enough security to fall asleep easily.

• Ministry of Education idiom dictionary: 如魚得水
• Lyric transcript

The reward is unusually modest: no anxiety and the ability to sleep. Across the mixtape, sleeplessness, bodily tension and overthinking repeatedly interrupt boasts. This line supplies their quiet opposite. Being at home in one’s life is tested by what the body can do when nobody is watching, rather than by what an audience applauds.

• Lyric transcript

又 makes recurrence explicit: another year, then another day. Paired with the same sleeping position, time becomes stable repetition instead of progress up a ladder. The intimacy with the pillow gives that repetition warmth. What might look monotonous from outside is presented as a routine safe enough to keep returning to.

• Lyric transcript

如胶似漆 compares intimacy to glue and lacquer sticking together; it usually describes people inseparably close. Giving that relationship to a pillow makes the bed a comic partner. After rejecting extra companions and praising ease, the verse finds an attachment that asks for no explanation, no performance and no extra place at the table.

• Ministry of Education dictionary: 如膠似漆
• Lyric transcript