The hook for "Under the Influence" captures a portion of the song's essence. "Esoteric, be the rhyme in soul and spirit / Let me touch your mind with the abstract and clear it / Literal, I speak the rhyme so you can understand / I keep it minimal for those that want to wave they hands." The song alternates between abstract and literal verses, with the first and third being abstract, and the second and fourth being literal. The initial concept was born out of my frustration with music industry standards which often promote songs of little meaning or lyrical depth. Listeners are conditioned to accept such music as "good." I thus decided to make a song where I, in effect, offered full translations for the abstract verses.

In terms of content and relation to the song title, the first and second verses deal with the power of external influences to affect the manner in which we behave. In the first verse, I mention the following: " . . . wool cloned to cloud sight most when you need it / Bull vs. Bear, glamour, glitter, glare, where / Thought intersects with sex, we transgress, effect / Infatuate with inanimate object. . . ." The lines essentially refer to the "wool being pulled over our eyes" or people being deceived and allowing the "glamour, glitter, glare" of advertising to affect behavior. Such a sentiment is echoed in the second (literal) verse when I mention: "The paradigm unshifted, you see on TV / Light skin, slender frame been the same imagery / Got the minds, they all twisted, the negative accepted / Too many young girls bulimic or anorexic."

The third and fourth verses deal specifically with the explosive impact/influence of words. The third verse illustrates such explosive power with the opening line, "Unclassified object, a bomb set." The fourth verse follows up on/clarifies the ideas in the previous verse by mentioning, "Words can hurt or words can be to your benefit."

Overall, "Under the Influence" thus deals on one level with the impact of visual and auditory/psychological influences upon human behavior. However, as aforementioned, on another level, the song deals with the manner in which music listeners are conditioned not only by the music industry to often avoid complex, meaningful music and lyrics, but also conditioned by society. In a global society that seems to be shifting more towards instant gratification, it is unfortunately often easier to be told what to think than to think for oneself.