Photo from Chance’s ‘Same Drugs’ Video
By Tucker Blackmon
Memories often soften and gather a wistful nature as we age. Humanity tends to romanticize the events and people in our past as if they are characters in a timeless film, and Chance the Rapper’s brilliant spin on the timeless topic of lost innocence in his song “Same Drugs” capitalizes on this fact as it takes the listener on a nostalgic journey through a friendship that has drifted apart over the duration of time. Seamlessly intertwining allusions to the film Hook and extended figurative language, Chance articulates a very relatable topic that will resonate with anyone that has had a friendship grow stale as common interests differ and alter through the threads of time.
Chance takes on the persona of Peter Pan through allusions in this song as he laments that his friend has “forgotten how to fly” and “lost their marbles.” He even refers to this friend as Wendy, and he notes that she has aged thus confirming the vast difference in mentality between the duo in the present tense. Perhaps the single most intriguing line is Chance’s assertion that he was too late to salvage the relationship, and ultimately he is “a shadow of what he once was,” alluding to Peter Pan’s constant attempts to snag his own shadow. It this anachronistic allusion that tugs on the heartstrings of the listener pulling them into the track effortlessly as they themselves can certainly relate to the cynicism that often accompanies aging.
The extended metaphor of “same drugs” comparing their common interest to something addictive and consuming intimates that these passions were ones that were once held dear to both, but with the passage of time, new “drugs” have taken their place. This line might be taken literally if not for the whimsical approach to the rest of the lyrics and the simple fact that such an adult reference like that wouldn’t fit in with the scope of the child-like allusions and scatting that Chance partakes in throughout the track.
Finally turning this song into a duet and singing with a puppet when performing this song live only further enhances the dream-like reality that children see full of imagination and wonder, and it insinuates that the author of the song still presides in this realm and remained a kid at heart. At the end of the song, the listener is left with a deep longing to somehow latch onto that childlike innocence and imagination lacking in their own lives, and Chance’s unforgettable track gives them just that chance.