Songoftheday 11/11/24 - Fumbling his confidence and wondering why the world has passed him by, hoping that he's bet for more than arguments and failed attempts to fly...

 

 

"Meant To Live" - Switchfoot

from the album The Beautiful Letdown (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #18 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 18

 

Today's song comes from the band Switchfoot, who originally came together under the name Chin Up in San Diego, with brothers Jon and Tim Johnson, the sons of a megachurch pastor along with drummer Chad Butler. Switching their name to Switchfoot, a surfing slang term, they were signed by the re:Think label, which was subsequently bought up by Christian music giant Sparrow Records. The trio released their debut album The Legend Of Chin in 1997, followed two years later by New Way To Be Human, which popped on to Billboard magazine's Christian Albums chart at #21. In 2000, their third and final disc with Sparrow, Learning To Breathe, earned the group a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Gospel Album, losing to veteran Christian rock band Petra for their Double Take album. 

 

With this building momentum, including selling over a half million copies of Learning To Breathe, Switchfoot moved to Columbia Records, giving them a much wider market for mainstream music. Under the Red Ink label, the trio added keyboardist Jerome Fontamillas for their next album The Beautiful Letdown. The first single from the record, "More Than Fine", cracked Billboard's Christian Songs chart at #36 in the summer of 2003. That was followed in the fall by "Gone", which spent a half year on the Christian Song chart with a high of 27. 

The song that broke the band on secular radio, "Meant To Live", came out in January of 2003 but didn't get traction until the middle of the summer on rock radio. Written by the Foreman brothers, the song's lyrics are vaguely inspirational, goading the listener to stop being passive in life and grab for something "more" in life, though not specifying what that more entails. The production from John Fields puts the guitar crunch at the forefront which makes the sound attach breathe and take over from the vocals. Initially a rock radio hit, eventually the song made its way through the formats to adult pop to mainstream top-40....

"Meant To Live" became Switchfoot's first hit on Billboard's Hot 100, reaching the top-20 in July of 2004. On the radio, the song peaked at #6 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart and #5 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, while making it to #5 on the Alternative Rock list and #36 on the Mainstream Rock counterpart. Internationally, the single made the top-40 in Canada (#20 airplay) and the United Kingdom (#29). The Beautiful Letdown album, released in February of 2003, took its time to climb to #16 on the Billboard 200 sales tally as the single was cresting, eventually spending 118 weeks on the list and selling over three million copies. 

Switchfoot at the album will be back to the series.

(6/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Another version of the official video had the group in concert...

Meanwhile, a third version was reshot with the band and included clips from the Spiderman 2 movie where it was on the soundtrack in the UK...

The band appeared on Conan O'Brien to promote the album...

Next up, in concert...

Lastly, in 2023 Switchfoot released a "Taylor Swift-style" redone version of the album, which included a new take on "Meant To Live" with singer/songwrter Jon Bellion, which slipped on to Billboard's Christian Songs chart at #25...

Up tomorrow: This popster is constant.