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How to Save a Life

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How to Save a Life

"How to Save a Life" is a song by American alternative rock band the Fray, released in March 26, 2006 as the second single from their debut studio album of the same name. The song is one of the band's most popular airplay songs and peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, becoming the band's highest-charting song. It became the joint seventh longest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, tying with Santana's 1999 single "Smooth", at 58 consecutive weeks. The song has received quintuple platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and has sold 4.7 million downloads as of January 2015, the fourth best-selling rock song in digital history.

"How to Save a Life" is the band's biggest hit single, peaking the Adult Top 40 chart for 15 consecutive weeks and peaking 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. Lyrically, the song is the lamentation of a person unable to help a troubled friend.

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 teenagers:

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.

During an interview in Sauce, Bob Wilson asked Slade, "'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:

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