Hows It Going To Be Semi Charmed Life Never Let You Go Third Eye Blind

How's It Going To Be Album: Third Eye Blind (1997)
Semi-Charmed Life Album: Third Eye Blind (1997)
Never Let You Go Album: Blue (2000)
by Third Eye Blind

On the HBO show Reverb, Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind described "How's It Going To Be" as "The emotional side of mortality, as played on a zither." He explained: "'How's It Going to Be' started with an autoharp that Kevin was playing. It's an antique instrument, and it inspired a nostalgic, emotional condition in me. And the lyrics really came out of that very quickly. I think the song's just about the fear you have when you've been close friends and that gets knocked back to becoming acquaintances again. So I think it's sort of a song about the emotional side of mortality."

In an interview with Third Eye Blind lead singer Stephan Jenkins, he said Semi-Charmed Life is "about falling apart." It relates specifically to a drug-induced high that makes everything fleetingly better. Said Jenkins: "Perfection is the moment right before gravity comes back in."

Semi-Charmed Life describes a drug user's descent into crystal meth addiction. The line, "I want something else..." contains a reference to crystal meth in the song. Stephan Jenkins explained on the HBO show Reverb that they intentionally put a chipper melody to the dark lyrical content. Said Jenkins: "When I wrote 'Semi-Charmed Life,' the guitar riff was intended to have this sort of bright duh-nuhnuh-nunt, this shiny thing, because that was a feeling of speed. You know, it's sort of a bright, shiny drug. And we all were sort of into hip-hop, and so it has a hip-hop flow over it."

The line: "Doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break" was a little racy for some radio stations, who played an edited version with the words "Crystal Meth" distorted.

Talking about the deeper meaning of Semi-Charmed Life on Reverb, Jenkins said: "It's a song about always wanting something. It's about never being satisfied, and reaching backwards to things that you've lost and towards things that you can never get. I think everybody has some identification with that. The story line between the people, the demise of this relationship, is just an extreme example of that condition. I think that's what makes people really relate to 'Semi-Charmed Life.'"

The band has admitted that they borrowed the "doot doot doot" part of the song from Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side."
This was Third Eye Blind's first single. The group's name could be a reference to a penis, but The Third Eye is also a metaphysical term in new age spirituality referring a state of enlightenment and is associated with the pineal gland.

The original line on Semi-Charmed Life was "I want nothing else..." but when the song was eventually released, it was changed to "I want something else." No explanation has ever been given for this, however recordings of the original can be found.

Semi-Charmed Life was played in the Norm MacDonald movie Dirty Work as Norm's character, Mitch, returns home after being fired to find his girlfriend is also kicking him out.

In 2015, when asked Stephan Jenkins how he felt about Semi-Charmed Life, he replied: "I don't feel like it's really mine. It's participating in the experiences that other people are having with it."

"Never Let You Go" is a song by American rock band Third Eye Blind. It was released on January 4, 2000, as the second single from their second album, Blue. The song peaked at number 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and spent three weeks at number one in Canada. It also reached number 26 in Iceland, number 15 in New Zealand, and number six on the UK Rock Chart.

Jenkins commented in the liner notes of the band's compilation album A Collection that it was written about a muse of his at the time (allegedly Charlize Theron), and it was written to "freak her out" when she heard it on the radio.

The writing credits of the song are a subject of debate among frontman Stephan Jenkins and former bassist Arion Salazar. Despite Jenkins being credited as the sole writer of the song, Salazar claims to have written the bass melodies, bridge, and chord progressions. In an interview with RIFF Magazine, Salazar claimed that Jenkins approached him, stating, "I really want to get the credit on [Never Let You Go]. Maybe if I give you a little more percentage [of the song's profit] I could just leave my name on it?".

A music video for Never Let You Go was released in January 2000, directed by Chris Hafner. It features the band performing on a metal platform high in a sunset-filled sky. Interspersed with the platform scenes are scenes of the band eating in a dimly-lit Chinese restaurant with several girls, going to a nightclub, and lead singer Stephen Jenkins meeting a girl backstage at a concert. During the first verse, Jenkins hangs from the bottom of the platform while his bandmates and several girls hang onto him, looking down apprehensively. In the first chorus, another girl dressed in a black latex outfit and matching thigh-high boots appears and climbs this human ladder up to the platform.

Meredith Gottlieb of MTV News referred to the video as "abstract".

Stephan Jenkins – vocals, guitar
Kevin Cadogan – guitar
Arion Salazar – bass
Brad Hargreaves – drums