Crash

In my opinion, this song is indeed about a car crash involving the singer and a loved one, most likely his girlfriend or wife. It's a conversation between the two. The singer isn't injured as much as the girl is. The girl is gasping for air, on the verge of dying, and the guy (singer) keeps telling her she will be okay and it's not her time to die.

A little fun fact about this song:

It is a REAL conversation.

The lead singer of SafetySuit was driving down the high way when he noticed a little boy and his father fighting in the car in front of him. Making a mental note, he continued to drive (45-50 mph). Then, the passenger door of the car in front of him opened and the little boy fell out! His dad had pushed him out of a moving car. :(

Doug pulled over and held the kid's head up while calling 911, and the whole time they were talking. He was bleeding a lot.

"Now, I need you to catch your breath for me. Cause... You're losing it. There's no time left to waste. I promise you- I will NOT leave. But right now I need you to stay with me, no look at me look at me. No one's going to die. It's not your time."

Doug says this. Next, the little boy says,

"Now I need you to make me a promise that you will tell my dad I'm sorry that I made everything worse." The little boy was only concerned that he had made his dad mad...

Then Doug says "No. I won't say that. You can tell him yourself when you see him soon, cause he's coming. You just have to hold on. Don't let go."

Then, when the ambulances get there, he says

"I know you might be scared, Do not be afraid. You're saved."

Doug says that he will never forget that day.

I know this reply is incredibly late, but I'm not saying the story with the boy is false at all! If anything I believe that to be the real meaning above all other interpretations.

What I'm saying is, if you want to look at the song in a different way, to add variety in how we're all looking at this song, then that can be a different tangent. It'd get very boring very quickly if every song only had one absolute meaning, and nothing else could be said about it, right? :D

To be honest, that's all I'll ever truly see the meaning of the song to be too, since as you said, it's the actual meaning. There will never be another true meaning, since we now know exactly what it was based off of. When I hear this song, I'll always think of the dying boy who felt he disappointed his father. Now that I know the real story, it's too ingrained in my head to think otherwise.

I guess the best way to say what I'm trying to convey is that, you can know the true meaning, accept it, and acknowledge that the meaning of the song is what Doug explained. You can't try to say it's something else when you know the real reasoning. That is just ignorance if you try to deny what the songwriter was saying.

What you CAN do however, is 'imagine' the song and its lyrics in a different situation. You know it's not the real meaning ,and you'll never try to say that it is, but you can see how it plays out in a different scenario. Just to try it out. It's like when you hear the song for the first few times, BEFORE you know the real meaning. You imagine what the story could possibly be, what scenario could play out, etc. If Doug never explained to us what the real meaning was, we'd all still be doing this very thing. Even though the true story is out there and official, that doesn't mean you can't be curious and see how the song would fit in a different scenario.

I'll be the first to admit that my initial comment on here about the song being 'self explanatory' was jumping the gun quite a bit. It was before I knew the real meaning, and it was one possible tangent that I felt the song could go on. Just because I know Doug's story now, though, doesn't mean I can't brainstorm how the song would go in a different scenario. I guess it's the amateur machinima film maker in me, thinking of different ways a song can be interpreted. I tend to imagine songs being used in different situations and seeing if there's a way I can make it work believably.

I apologize to anyone who felt I was trying to push my interpretation as the real one, or that I was putting down Doug's real reason. All I was intending was to stretch the imagination and pretend how it could work in other scenarios. No disrespect intended whatsoever. :)

Honestly, this song is practically self explanatory. The singer (I'll refer to him as "him" or "he" since 'the singer' will get annoying quick lol) is telling a loved one (most likely a girl he loves) to hold on and not die, after a horrible car crash. They don't say for sure if he was in the crash as well, but for this explanation I'll say he was. :)

Anyways, the girl has given up hope and has a gut feeling she's going to die before help arrives. She tells him to tell her dad that she's sorry for having this happen and making her dad's life sad now that she's dying, but he is in denial and refuses, saying that she'll be alive to tell her father that herself. Throughout the song he's telling her to hold on and don't stop trying and living, and don't keep being afraid, because he's there and everything will be alright. He's promising that he'll be a dear friend and stay by her side as she gets better if she only holds on and survives until help arrives.

The energy of the song reflects the urgency and the emotions running through both the girl and the guy. The end makes this extremely known as the power picks up, Doug's singing gets stronger and more forceful, and he's sounding as if the guy is becoming desperate to save the girl, as she most likely is losing strength and starting to fade away.

What made this song instantly heartbreaking for me was the very end. The way the song just abruptly ends mid-chorus, unexpected and poignant, as well as how the singing is practically shouting (in the right way, mind you) the last few words and just echo away, suggest a grim fate. The almost-untraceable minor key that plays as the song is just about faded out give a sad feeling to the song to me. To me, the end tells me that the girl right at that moment couldn't hold on any longer and died, and the way the singing just ends tells me that he realizes that, and the fight and struggle is over.

This song is such an emotional one, even though it doesn't immediately imply that with the way the song sounds (almost sounding like a car-type of song, actually), but it certainly does come across in the singing and lyrics. They did an amazing job with this song, and while this wasn't nearly one I liked when the album came out, after seeing the meaning behind it, I am starting to appreciate and like it that much more. It's essentially a sad story, but one I don't regret listening to.