“Like a River Runs” is a beautiful song about the loss of the sister of the singer, describing a recurrent dream he had regarding her death.

Bleachers released an EP on June 2nd, 2015, that centers around “Like A River Runs,” featuring four tracks – a new rework of the song by Jack, a cover version of the song by Sia, a live performance from Buffalo, and the b-side to the track, which is an interview with Jack entitled “Dreams Aren’t Random” dubbed over a backing track by Bleachers.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Jack describes that the song was written at two levels:

“It’s a really sad song,” Antonoff admits. “I guess you can dance and cry to it. That’s what I thought about when I wrote the song. I wanted it to be a song that if you put it on with a bunch of people, you could be like, ‘Oh, this song feels so good,’ with that beat and the melody and all that stuff. But if you lay in bed at home alone, you could listen to the lyrics and they’re all about loss and trying to move on without becoming too complicated a person.”

He adds that it was the first song he wrote for Strange Desire and it works as the “mission statement” for the entire album.