‘Velodrome’ opens with a question of free will and grapples with that question for the rest of the song. In the first verse, Dessa informs the listener of her intent to devise new answers for old philosophical questions such as, “what is free will”, by launching into the first of a few nods to her family’s Catholic background on the album in the form of Saint Aquinas' famous angelic pondering and what alternative answer might exist there, too. From The Verge’s “Chime” interview with Dessa:

(Dessa) decided she doesn’t believe in free will anymore. Her love for her ex had not felt like free will, and sitting with electrodes stuck to her head had been a passive experience, but it had made something change. That tension is present in the first line of a soft, piano and violin-backed song on Chime called “Velodrome.” “I don’t believe my will’s quite free / I’m half machine, at least half steam.”