Incubus -Drive

For the longest time, I’ve always thought this song had a pronounced negative effect on my life that made me feel sad and lonely until that all changed when I listened to the lyrics.

The song came out on November 20, 2000. At this time I was eight years old and in elementary school. I don’t hear the song for a couple of years until later on, it comes on the radio in my parent’s car. As I listened to the song I thought wow this is a cool track that my dad tells me who the artist is, Incubus. I thought to myself, cool band name.

After a while, as the years go by, I graduate school I’d go off to college to figure out what am I going to do with my life. Around this time, I was not in a good place where I felt lonely and depressed of this isolation I had with my family. Physically my family knew I was around but mentally I was locked up that I couldn’t express my feelings. Even when I drove in my car I hear the song play over the radio, I get tears in my eyes that I take a deep breath to calm myself while driving. My maturity level and self-esteem were at an all-time low that every time the song came on I always felt that life had to be better and more meaningful than right now in that moment.

Eventually, as I had gotten older and matured, I didn’t think much of the song after even when it came on, I turned up the radio, took a drive, and listen to its rhythm I didn’t care much for the lyrics after that. I knew the song, yet I only cared about how it made me feel at that moment.

Then as I was making myself a sandwich with chips and dip and a glass of water I put my phone to the side of my plate and put the song, Drive, on my phone to listen to as I’m eating away at my lunch and begin to hear what the lyrics are saying as I’m chipping and dipping.

What the lyrics said to me was the issue I had for too long, fear. Remembering correctly that I was fearful of everything, my family, my mistakes, my decisions, my mind, my trauma, pretty much everything drove me to be fearful that I changed my mind about the song that instead of feeling sad and worthless, the song motivated me to feel better at understanding that I have to drive myself through this life and not let any other person take the wheel from me.

The mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Instead of seeing things through fear or difficulty, I see things that are a challenge to overcome and fail at through experiences to move forward and drive myself through this thing called life. I got the wheel and have to figure out where I’m going to go down this road.

If I hear the song now, it cheers me up.

As I write this the song will be 21 years old that it amazes me to see older songs like this one stand the test of time. It’s a good song that I just saw the tune in a negative light that I looked past that and now see the song in a more positive light to “hold my own and drive.”