Songs

01 May 2016

Hello everyone, it's been a long time since i wrote another entry on my blog. Last monday Mrs. Wiwin gave us an assignment which was to wrote about a song, the meaning of the lyrics, etc. So i choose this song

The Fray - How To Save A Life. Without further ado let's talk about it

A. Singer
The Fray is an American rock band from Denver, Colorado. Formed in 2002 by schoolmates Isaac Slade and Joe King, they achieved success with the release of their debut album, How to Save a Life in 2005, which was certified double platinum by the RIAA and platinum in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK. The Fray achieved national success with their first single, "Over My Head (Cable Car)", which became a top ten hit in the United States. The release of their second single, "How to Save a Life", brought the band worldwide fame. The song charted in the top three of the Billboard Hot 100 and was a top 5 single in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Italy,Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.


B. About the Song

"How to Save a Life" is a song by American pop rock band The Fray. It was released as the second single from their debut studio album of the same name on August 28, 2005. The song is one of the band's most popular airplay songs and peaked in the top 3 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States. It became the joint seventh longest charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, tying with Santana's "Smooth" (1999), at 58 consecutive weeks. The song has been certified 3x Platinum by the RIAA, and has sold 4.7 million downloads as of January 2015, the fourth best-selling rock song in digital history.

It is the band's highest-charting song to date, topping the Adult Top 40 chart for 15 consecutive weeks and topping the Canadian Airplay Chart. It was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 2007, but lost to "Dani California" by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

C. Music Video

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D. Lyrics

Step one, you say we need to talk
He walks, you say sit down, it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through

Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left, and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong?

I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
Cause after all, you do know best

Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And I pray to God he hears you
I lost a friend

Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice

Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same

And you'll begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

How to save a life
How to save a life

Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

How to save a life
How to save a life

E. The Writer's Thought

According to lead singer Isaac Slade, the song was composed and influenced by his experience while working as a mentor at a camp for troubled teens:

“One of the youngsters I was paired up with was a musician. Here I was, a protected suburbanite, and he was just 17 and had all these problems. And no one could write a manual on how to save him.”

Slade claims that the song is about all of the people that tried to reach out to the boy but were unsuccessful. As Slade says in an interview, the boy's friends and family approached him by saying, "Quit taking drugs and cutting yourself or I won't talk to you again," but all he needed was some support. The boy was losing friends and going through depression. He lost his best friend and could not deal with it. The verses of the song describe an attempt by an adult to confront a troubled teen. In the chorus, the singer laments that he himself was unable to save a friend because he did not know how.

While this was the original intent of the song, the band has opened the song to interpretation. They created a website where fans were welcome to submit music videos they had made for the song. This arose from the response that Slade got from the song

“I got a lot of e-mails about it. One boy died in a car accident, and I guess it had been the last song he downloaded from his computer. They played it at his funeral, and some of his friends got Save a life tattooed on their arms. The response has been overwhelming.”

From an interview with Slade by Bob Wilson in Sauce, Slade was asked, "'How to Save a Life', was apparently inspired by an experience you had as a mentor to a boy who had a drug problem. What's the story behind that?" Slade answered:

“Well there's a group home here in Denver called Shelterwood, and it takes in teens who've had a tough time; their parents don't want to send them to jail, but they can't keep track of them themselves... A friend of mine was actually the president for that particular school, so he asked Joe and I to come up for one of their weekend retreats... I was paired up with one boy in particular. His story was just amazing – all the relationships that he had put at risk because of the decisions he made, and eventually losing the relationships... the cost of his lifestyle and his choices, and kind of relating them to my own life and my own stories; seeing all the relationships I've threatened for one reason or another. It was a really inspiring weekend.”

F. My Thought

It's a really good song both based by vocal performance and the deep meaning of the lyrics. I first heard this song from from the hospital drama Grey's Anatomy, back then i haven't yet understand the deep meaning of the lyrics since i'm just around 12 years old at the time, and i kinda forgot about the existence of this song. When Mrs.Wiwin gave me this assignment this wasn't the first song that came accross my mind.

But when i do some search i stumbled accross this song, which i chose because it sounds familiar for me. After hearing few times i then remembered that i used to hear this song, then i do some searching about the inspiration behind this song, and that was the reason that i don't hesitate at all on picking this song. The song also mirrored my experience that i have passed all of this years in my life.

To be honest, i also ever contemplated on suicide but i managed to give another thought on it and as result of it i can be here writing this blog. Because what i realize after what i experience is no matter how hard your life are, there's a lot of other people suffer like you or maybe even worser but they still keep strong no matter how harsh their life is. Why can't you??

I also stressed at the time, i think that death is better for me rather than suffering this life anymore, but what do you gain after death?? Nothing. Doing suicide will do no good to problems that you are passing through. You have to keep strong, running away will do no good to your problems, you have to face it head on no matter how hard it is. If i can, why can't you?

I hope this song can inspire a lot of people that are suffering from hardships of their life to keep move forward without any regrets.

Thanks For Reading

See You Next Time

- The Awesome One