Feeling This

Feeling This is Track 1 from the self-titled 2003 blink-182 album: blink-182. This track appeared on the Madden 2004 soundtrack titled as Action but was renamed before release. This was the first song written for the album and the lyrics were a surprising exercise. Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge both went to separate rooms and wrote their parts, Tom: verses and Mark: chorus, without discussing the subject of the song. Amazingly, or expectedly as the case may be, they both wrote about sex. Tom wrote the lustful side whereas Mark wrote the romantic side. The lyrics feel odd at the beginning but the counter-melody at the end is a great sound. Musically, Travis' drum flange during the intro was done using two tape machines.

The sounds of this song differ greatly from the rest of the album. Feels more like older Blink albums. The opening contains a quote from Captain America then goes straight into Tom’s, in my opinion, annoying singing voice. Mark, however, has some great deeper tones and lyrics as the song progresses. The two-part style is nothing new to a Blink song as any seasoned fan knows from live shows as well as recorded pieces such as Pathetic and Man Overboard. This two-part system is used much more frequently and effectively on this album. Other songs that utilize this well include: I Miss You, Down, Go, Easy Target, and, the best example in my opinion, Stockholm Syndrome. Overall this is a good single but by far not the greatest song on the album.

Feeling This peaked out at the number 2 position on the Modern Rock Billboard Chart sustaining for eleven weeks at the time of this writing and still at fourth. The album itself, blink-182, peaked out at third on the Billboard charts with this song being the first fuel to that fire.

Tom opens the song after the Captain America opening with this verse. Each line is echoed by Mark’s “I’m feeling this” line. The feeling is hard and loud (for blink 182 anyway) during the verses conveying the lustful meaning.

I got no regret right now (I'm feeling this)
The air is so cold and low
Let me go in her room
I wanna take off her clothes
Show me the way to bed
Show me the way you move
Fuck it, it's such a blur
I love all the things you do

Mark sings the chorus with an excellent deeper tone and longer notes to convey the romantic meaning behind his lyrics. Each of them are singing the parts they individually wrote.

Chorus:
Fate fell short this time
Your smile fades in the summer
Place your hand in mine
I'll leave when I wanna

Tom again sings here. The first too lines are the first hint on the album of blink’s use of silence or less noise even to create excellent transitions and again show marked evolution (or growth depending on your skewed view).

Where do we go from here
Turn all the lights down now
Smiling from ear to ear (I'm feeling this)
Our breathing has got too loud
Show me the bedroom floor
Show me the bathroom mirror
We're taking this way too slow
Take me away from here

Chorus x2

The second chorus is sung by Tom in a scratchy, distant way. When Mark comes back in with the next two sections more affect comes out. This song overall has simple lyrics but really accentuates the band’s desire to create an album that is more artistic (their words not mine). Here it is the first section that uses again the lack of noise in a radio like sound as Mark sings.

This place was never the same again
After you came and went
How can you say you meant anything different
To anyone standing alone
On the street with a cigarette
On the first night we met

Look to the past
And remember and smile
And maybe tonight
I can breathe for awhile
I'm not in the scene
I think I'm fallin' asleep
But then all that it means is
I'll always be dreaming of you

Here, the last chorus, really ices the cake to me. Mark sings the chorus and Tom sings the same thing, at first, on different, harmonizing notes. Eventually Tom starts a fantastic counter-melody with the last two lines over Mark’s choruses. At the very end of the song both are singing their melodies acappella (a term I thought I’d never use to describe anything they produced).

Chorus x5
Are we alone, Do you feel it?
So lost and disillusioned x4