Or maybe you still love it, but now you have a different perspective.
Semi-Charmed Life, by Third Eye Blind. Basically, it’s a song about doing meth… Spent almost twenty years just singing the chorus with absolutely no idea what the rest of the lyrics were. Now, it kinda feels weird, ngl.
I, as a child, did a music class presentation on “my favourite song of the year” on this little ditty.
Whoops!
Edit: To clarify, then, much like now, I listened to the music and not the lyrics. I don’t know if that’s common at all, but the singing is basically another instrument to me, and I hardly ever pay attention to the actual words.
I think it’s fairly common to not always pay close attention to the lyrics. Most of the time, you hear a song on the radio, and you can’t always make out what it’s saying, but you’re still able to enjoy the music and the singing melody. Until you pay more attention or you seek out the lyrics, then you’re often surprised about what it’s saying, cause the lyrics weren’t the point when you used to listen to the song. It doesn’t mean that it’s world-changing or anything, but it just takes you by surprise.
But it’s about how the excitement of meth, like that of a new relationship, fades and leaves the speaker wanting something more substantial while still fondly reminiscing about the good times.
The speaker thinks of the girl as a “sunburn” he “would like to save.” He describes meth as something that “will lift you up until you break.” I think these characterizations point very strongly toward nostalgic longing and away from the glorification of addiction or even that of drug use. So no reason to feel weird I think.
I guess you’re right, I just never gave the song much thought. It’s just that it kinda felt like some happy song and I never paid attention to what it was saying, then I looked them up one day, out of curiosity, and I guess it juat felt unexpected to me, and that’s why it felt weird. Thinking about what you said makes me want to give the song another listen with an open mind, I guess.
Fun fact: Semi Charmed Kinda Life made it into a late '90s Disney film about surfers. They didn’t even bleep anything because, I assume, they couldn’t understand what he was singing.
Another fun fact is that the original radio edit that charted is different from the album version / version that is on streaming these days. It lacks verse 3
And when the plane came in, she said she was crashing The velvet, it rips in the city We tripped on the urge to feel alive But now, I’m struggling to survive Those days you were wearing that filthy dress You’re the priestess, I must confess Those little red panties, they pass the test Slides up around the belly face down on the mattress one And you hold me And we are broken Still it’s all that I want to do, just a little now
I love people being surprised by this song when a verse literally says ‘doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break’.
"It won’t stop, I won’t come down
I keep stock with the tick-tock rhythm
I bump for the drop, and then I bumped up
I took the hit that I was given, then I bumped again
Then I bumped again"
That entire verse, but honestly rereading the lyrics, I’m amazed that got radio play in the Bible belt. I know it did, because I heard it uncensored in southeastern Indiana.
I didn’t know it was about Crystal meth for a really long time because I only heard it on the radio for many many years and they only played a clean version where the phrase “Crystal Meth” is cut out in a way that’s not really obvious it was edited so I just never understood the lyrics.
“The sky was gold, it was rose, I was taking sips of it through my nose…” didn’t clue you in?
Nope. That song came out when I was ten, so I had no clue it was about anything like that until probably a decade later.
