Day 2 - "How's It Going to Be?" by Third Eye Blind

"How's It Going To Be?" by Third Eye Blind

Day two came out a couple of months late. I've been busy and I'm a terrible procrastinator. On to the blog:

I know what all you hip young gunslingers are thinking (besides, "This guy has watched High Fidelity one too many times). Third Eye Blind is not emo! Alright, technically you are correct. But ask All Time Low, Boys Like Girls, or any number of the emo bands that hit a stage these days who their heroes are. Most of them are going to drop in their list of The Pixies, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Jawbreaker the 3eb.

I gotta be honest, Third Eye Blind has never been one of my favorite bands. And for that reason alone I should probably have avoided writing about them. I, however, have always had a penchant for boldly rushing onto ground where wiser men fear to tread. Really it boils down to the fact that many of my favorite current songwriters cite this band as one of their major influences. That's why I'm talking about this San Francisco post-grunge, pop-punk, emoish rock band from the nineties.

But let's talk about this song and why it made the cut. The verses are all cut and dry typical emo. It starts out explaining that this will be a classic tale of being overwhelmed:

"I'm only pretty sure
That I can't take anymore,"

Followed by a question that restates the sort of I've-forgotten-what-we-were-fighting-about line that screams of Don Henley or Michael Bolton if they were punk:

"Before you take a swing
I wonder
What are we fighting for?"

This is a song of what was once a great romance that is now perfunctory and mundane. In the sarcastic words of Brian Regan, "You're really breaking new ground there, Copernicus." This song's emo cred it all built on the end when Stephan Jenkins screams out towards the end,

"Want to get myself back in again,
The soft dive of oblivion.
I want to taste the salt of your skin,
The soft dive of oblivion."

The emotion is there in the musical content, but the lyrics nod to the sense of nihilistic realism that is present in almost every emo song. Now, I know, that sounds dark, but let's face it: People in their late teens and early twenties think that the tell-tale signs of a romance fading is right next to the apocalypse on the calamity meter. That's what makes emo great: the unabashed emotional self-indulgence of wallowing in the grief of what is ultimately something a healthy, well-balanced individual will never think about when the "real world" hits. If you want healthy adult contemplative introspection, emo is definitely not the genre for you.