In the film, "Just Around the Riverbend" serves as Pocahontas' "I want" song, where she decides if she will follow tradition and the safe choice, or whether she will explore the unknown and have new adventures.
She marvels at how the river can change its course so effortlessly, twisting and turning, and ending up somewhere new and exciting.
As Pocahontas was a reinterpretation of the Romeo and Juliet story, and the first song sung by Tony in the Romeo and Juliet based musical West Side Story is "Something's Coming", Schwartz explains that "Just Around the Riverbend" is essentially "the Native American version of Something's Coming".
Contemporary Media Culture and the Remnants of a Colonial Past argues that this song is equivalent to Belle's desire of wanting "more than this provincial life" in Beauty and the Beast, and that she seeks to become emancipated from the Native American patriarchy by an external force (which turns out to be the colonists, though she does not know it at the time).
[3] Hollywood's Indian: The Portrayal of the Native American in Film describes Pocahontas' persona at the point when she sings this song as "youthful irresponsibility", contrasting this to her "mature self-knowledge through courage and love" which she adopts throughout the course of the movie.