Kryptonite is one of the most famous songs by the band 3 Doors Down. It was released on 18th January 2000. It is among my favorite songs in the rock genre to listen to and feels like what a typical rock song released during the 2000s would feel like. The 2000s decade produced some really good rock tracks and 3 Doors Down had considerable influence among the rock audience at that time.
Story Behind the Song
Brad Arnold was 15 years old sitting in a maths class and was bored as hell. At that point he started tapping his desk and the tapping turned into drumming which later converted into the song.
Thank God for the little dude that sat in front of me, that dude deserves credit on the album! I was so bad in math. So bad. But my teacher knew I was not good, not paying attention, but he just kind of let me go. I believe I wrote the lyrics to some other songs in that same class. I wrote probably about half of that Better Life album sitting in that math class.
Brad Arnold
According to him, the skippy little drum beat is almost exactly the one that he was tapping on his desk.
Song Meaning
The song is about a question as Brad explains it. It is about knowing if the other person will be there for you if you are down in life or even when you are doing good. Brad feels that it is easy to be there for someone when they are doing bad in life and its a lot harder to be there for people when they are not doing good in life. A lot of times people feel jealous of you when you are doing well in life. So, this is the point that Brad is talking about.
Its question is kind of a strange one. It’s not just asking, ‘If I fall down, will you be there for me?’ Because it’s easy to be there for someone when they’re down. But it’s not always easy to be there for somebody when they’re doing good. And that’s the question it’s asking. It’s like, ‘If I go crazy, will you still call me Superman?’ It’s asking, ‘If I’m down, will you still be there for me?’ But at the same time, ‘If I’m alive and well, will you be there holding my hand?’ That’s kind of asking, ‘If I’m doing good, will you be there for me? Will you not be jealous of me?’ And maybe throughout the years of singing that song, I might have come up with more meanings for it than it actually might have originally had
Brad Arnold
Personally, this does resonate a lot when you look at it. I experienced this in my life too. At a point of times in the past I was not doing so well academically or otherwise in life in general during graduation. A lot of friends at the time thought I wouldn’t do much, however things changed and I started doing alright. I realized at that time, people didn’t want to be friends with me anymore after I started doing fine.
Superman and Dark Side of the Moon Reference
This is what Brad had to say about the reference to Superman and Kryptonite in his song. Kryptonite is the green rock that happens to be Superman’s weakness. At first I thought it was about a love for a woman who happened to be his weakness. But it seems like its not.
That line is just like a happenstance line. That song is so little about Superman. It’s just really about that question. That’s just something that everybody can identify with.
Brad Arnold
Also, a fun fact is that Superman Part 1 or 2 was released after he wrote that song and they had Superman fighting on the dark side of the moon.
And I was like, ‘What?!’ And it was after I wrote that song. That was weird.
Brad Arnold
