Third Eye Blind - Motorcycle Driveby

Genre

Alternative Rock

Lyrics

Summer time and the wind is blowing outside in lower Chelsea,
And I don't know what I'm doing in this city.
The sun is always in my eyes,
It crashes through the windows,
And I'm sleeping on the couch,
When I came to visit you,
That's when I knew,
That I could never have you,
I knew that before you did.
Still I'm the one who's stupid,
And there's this burning, Like there's always been,
I've never been so alone, And I've never been so alive.

Visions of you on a motorcycle drive by,
The cigarette ash flies in your eyes, And you don't mind, you smile,
And say the world doesn't fit with you.
I don't believe you, You're so serene.
Careening through the universe, your axis on a tilt,
You're guiltless and free, I hope you take a piece of me with you,
And there's things I would like to do that you don't believe in,
I would like to build something, But you'll never see it happen,
And there's this burning, Like there's always been,
I've never been so alone,
And I've, I've never been so alive.

And there's this burning, ahhh, There is this burning, yeah yeah yeah
Where's the soul? I want to know, New York City is evil.
The surface is everything, but I could never do that,
Someone would see through that.
And this is the last time, We'll be friends again.
I'll get over you, you'll wonder, who I am.
And there's this burning, Just like there's always been,
I've never been so alone, alone, alive, alive, I've never been so alive, so alive

I go home to the coast. It starts to rain, I paddle out on the water alone,
Taste the salt and taste the pain. I'm not thinking of you again,
Summer dies and swells rise,
The sun goes down in my eyes,
See this rolling wave,
Darkly coming to take me home,

And I never been so alone,
And I've never been so alive.

Aimless Babble

A gentle single-line guitar riff starts us off and is established as the pulse of the song. Over this repeating pattern of notes, a one-note bass pattern seamlessly slides in with the guitar riff and then the vocals join in. This is yet another Guy Reminisces About Girl song, but with better lyrics. For me, the lyrics are vividly visceral with lines like "The sun is always in my eyes, it crashes through the window" and "The cigarette ash flies in your eyes." Granted, just thinking about those lines makes my eyes hurt...but they're still sensations that are very relatable and sincere. My favourite line in this song is "careening through the universe, your axis on a tilt." Just awesome.

At the end of the first verse, the guitar leaps up with a few plucked chords after the line "And I've never been so alive," bringing the riff to a brief halt and evoking a lively, disjunct segue into the new verse. The second verse also ends with the same line, however, there's a lot more movement in the bass this time around, starting at "and there's this burning," the bass plays a downward scale and culminates in a repetition of the lowest note that gradually get louder and more intense, and ends with the singer yelling "I've never been so alive." Here, the vibrant electric guitar and drums are unleashed and after a short interlude, the singer screams the lines "there is this burning" and the instruments erupt and come alive in an almost manic, desperate manner.

After a pretty intense bridge which ends with the singer insisting that he's "so alive, so alive," the guitar riff from the verses return and the song returns to its staid beginnings. The drifting, meandering feeling you get from the last four lines of the last verse fit perfectly well with the floating, ethereal instrumentals. The song then ends first with a brief silence, which aptly precede the line "And I've never been so alone," and concludes with a final declaration of being "so alive."