"I want something else to get me through this / Semi-charmed kinda' life."
Sex, drugs, and rock & roll, and a roaring ode to tripping on crystal meth and meaningless one-night stands. Boy, Stephan Jenkins and company certainly have the life, eh?
Not so much.
The poppy sound of Third Eye Blind's breakthrough single goes a long way to mask the deeper message at play (kinda ironic, since they come right out and state it right there in the title and again in each chorus... but whatever). Yeah, things sure seem all well and good -- but the band knows that this is all just a string of temporary highs in their otherwise unfulfilled existence. As Jenkins sings: "I want something else to get me through this / semi-charmed kinda' life."
Hey waitasecondhere -- a "charmed kinda' life?" Where have I heard something along those lines before?
Oh that's right:
"I bear a charmed life."- Macbeth, V.8
In Act V of the-play-we-cannot-name, the would-be Scottish king waxes philosophical about his lot in the world. His life is "charmed" (the witches told him as much in Act I). He literally got away with murder. He's got a kingdom. A sweet castle. All the wine he can drink. A beautiful bride (nutty though she may be, ya' just know that Lady McBeth is a total dynamo between the sheets). And -- in most stage adaptations -- a kickass beard.
In short? Sex, drugs, and heads-will-rock-&-roll. Macbeth does indeed "bear a charmed life." He's riding high on fortune's wheel. And he practically dares the enemy to come and get him, since everything is just so gosh-darned perfect.
(To the surprise of ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, guess who dies almost immediately thereafter?)
Literary allusion FOR. THE. WIN.
Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Life" is a modern-day reflection to exactly the same sort of "charmed" life so famously lauded by the Bard's tragic hero of the Highlands. Yeah, things *seem* good -- but is that all there is? If Macbeth's fate is any indicator: not likely. Fun is fun. But there's gotta' be "something else to get me through this / semi-charmed kinda' life."
Best guess?
It sure ain't crystal meth.
