The Fray: How to Save a Life Meaning
Song Released: 2006
How to Save a Life Lyrics
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...
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To me the song How to Save a Life by The Fray, is about suicide, or even a major drug problem. To me the song describes how people want to help out this person from depression or drugs, to get their mind out of thinking about crossing over to the place where it's hard to come back and taking that path. It is also how hard people try to help them but sometimes it just isn't enough and then you loose that friend.
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It's about suicide because it says " if I stayed up with you all night then I'd know how to save a life" I'm guessing his friend wanted to kill himself while the fray was sleeping
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This is how I see the song. It's obvious that even though it is a guy singing he is singing through a woman. She has a man than she deeply cares about and they are intimate, he has serious problems, but unknown. She sticks by him, has tried and tried and probably has not been treated well by him but still so much cares about him to get to this point where she realizes that she cannot help him nor be a victim to him. Therefore, she has to give him up even though she cares for him deeply and is feeling guilt that she cannot save his life.
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I think it is about a girl who doesnt like how her relationship is going with her boyfriend, and so ends it. she then realizes... or never forgot... that she still loves this person, 'and begins to wonder why she came'. So whil he goes left, she goes toward the window on the right, after she jumps, this boy believes it was his fault that she killed herself, and realizes he was the one who could have prevented had he been better to her, had he known this was going to happen, he could have saved her life if he would have payed attention and 'stayed up with her all night'
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the singer lost a friend. they commited suicide, and he feels that he could have helped them if he would have known how.
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I can relate to this song coz I have a friend that talks to me about her serious problems at school(W.S.H.S)-first sports school.. newai I really don't think its only about someone taking drugs but also other ways of committing suicide.. This girl she talks to me, only, about killing herself coz of personal issues. And I try to help her but sometimes get into arguments but I just let her know that shez right..right now 27march09 I haven't seen her in a while she hasn't spoken to me and I wonder 'where did I go wrong'...........
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I think this song is about a girl trying to talk to her boyfriend about their relationship changing but her wanting it to stay the same. She trys to tell him to stop changing and he wont listen to what she has to say. Then she starts to wonder why she even tried to help their relationship at all and she gets mad and leaves. Then she realized that she didnt have to act that way and could have saved him from what he was turning into but not forcing him to make a choice. But thats just my point of view (:
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When I was like 6 years old my uncle killed himself because he and his wife broke up, and I think about that when I hear this song, so to me this is about a married couple that has a lot of issues and is on the road of divorce, it just fits right in.
The woman in this relationship wanted to talk it out with the husband, "Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk". She thinks they've gone onto two different paths, and she is afraid of blaming him, "As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame"
Now the chorus is like a future thing, or lets say the verses are from the past.
"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"
Is like how she feels now, since he commited siucide.
"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 pray to God he hears you"
Again back at the verse, she tells him what is wrong, things they've argued about all through the dark time of their marriage, and he doesn't think she's right, so she tries to get past his denial, without making it sound like he's the "good guy". When she's said what's wrong, she hopes he listens her.
"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"
She gives him an ultimatum, trying to get him to change so that they can be happy again, but he thinks that's impossible.
So they break up and he gets too devastated and kills himself, so she feels like in the chorus, that it's her fault.
That's what I think of when I hear this song. But as many other people said (including the writer), I think it's about a drug addict. But this was what this song is to me so. -
It's about a person who lost a friend because the friend commited suicide. The person is feeling guilty throughout the song, believing they could have stopped their friend.
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The song is about two friends who were close to each other, but chose
different paths, and one makes a wrong choice. The other friend confronts
the other, and the bad choice maker is addicted to drugs, ect. So the good friend
decides to "save" his/her life. -
Personal interpretation: The love of my life is very ill. He will either die or live in a way that will never really be the same. In this song, I am analytically "talking" to him. "As he goes left and you stay right," I try to stay on the path we've been following, yet his deteriorating health leads him in another direction we were not originally headed for. "Between the lines of fear and blame, (I) begin to wonder why I came." I wonder why I'm here in this position. I am scared of losing him and blame myself, even him sometimes, for why this is happening to us.
"Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend somewhere in the bitterness. And I would have stayed up with you all night had I known how to save a life." What happened to us, what could I have possibly done to bring this upon myself, upon him? I've lost him already, really, my best friend in this "bitterness," this terrible situation. Even if he lives, he won't be the same person as before. I would do anything to save him, to save us, if I just knew what to do.
"Let him know that you know best, Cause after all you do know best. Try to slip past his defense without granting innocence." I continue to tell him everything will be okay, because, after all, this is the way I have to believe. He tells me though that I may be wrong and I don't really know what's going on. I ignore him, because I have to continue to believe. I continue to tell him he can't give up and that all of this is just temporary. I choose to believe that positive thinking can only help us, help him, and "I pray to God he hears (me)," even though I am silently doubtful (the desperateness in the tone and repetition of this lyric....).
"As he begins to raise his voice .... break with the ones you've followed." He argues with me mainly about my not knowing what it's really like to be him right now. He's angry, and I let him be angry. I agree I don't really know. But he can choose to follow his own road or continue to follow me and believe that everything will be okay.
"He will do one of two things....wonder why you came." He will choose to believe in my interpretation or his interpretation of the current situation ("say he's just not the same"). Since he will still not make a decision about this, "(I) begin to wonder why I came." Why I even continue with all of this....
Again, "where did I go wrong" and how can I save him. The repetition and tone indicate desperation: I'm so f%^$#@(^ desperate to do whatever to save him, to have things be as much as possible the way they were before. And, finally, I'll just do anything to keep him alive... We have 2 children together 15 and 3. I can't do this by myself. I need him in any way possible. I do what I can to stay positive because it keeps me sane. But, please, please, please let me know "how to save a life." -
The first few lines remind me of a breakup, but it seems to get deeper. After analyzing it this is what I got.
Here he is with his friend at a party, he's getting mad and angered at his friend for not listening. His friends drunk but thinks he can drive. He tries to talk sensibly but becomes overwhelmed by bitterness and his friend drives home and dies and he wished he knew how to save a life or how to control his anger.
Just my opinion on it. -
Well the truth is that it's about a troubled teens camp where this boy was trying to commit suicide so he got sent to this camp and the person that wrote this song talked to the boy that was trying to kill himself and one night they were sitting around talking and after a while they went to bed and when the person that wrote this song woke up in the morning the boy had committed suicide and then he wrote this song saying if he had stayed up all night he would have saved his life.
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I think it is about a girl who loses her love and she would have stayed up all night with him and he is doing drugs. eventually they fade apart because he chose not to listen to what she had to say and if he would have listened they still would have been friends. She wonders what she did wrong and what happened to her friendship. She only wanted to help and he got mad at her for trying to and walked towards the other direction trying to ignore her. The song has much, meaning.
Summarized, I think it is a girl who lost a best friend cause he chose to do drugs and didn't want to listen to her so she gave him the choice to leave or listen and he chose to leave and she wonders what she did wrong -
Actually, the story behind the song is a long one.
Isaac volunteered at a substance abuse camp for teens and befriended a kid there. when Isaac tries to tell the kid to stop (he was a counselor-type thing) the kid doesn't listen. The kid goes and gets high, steals a car, and leaves. He crashes on the side of the road and dies.
Isaac is now left feeling guilty and blaming himself because he feels like he didn't do enough. (where did I go wrong) so he lost a friend and blames himself for not realizing what an issue this kid has soon enough.
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