The Fray - "How to Save a Life"

As a writer, I've found it helpful to have certain songs to listen to while I'm writing. For Midnight Rising, I have characters with playlists all their own, just songs that remind me of them when I've hit a rough patch and their voices are just whispers in my inner ear.
This song is one of Alika's favorites, but it's Silver's song. One day I was writing and this came on in my iTunes, and she popped up out of nowhere and said, "It's like he took everything about my interactions with Lance, every single bit of hope and frustration and exasperation and anger, and set it to piano." And it's true; this girl has had a hard life. She's got a hard road ahead of her, and the people who were supposed to be helping out have all bailed at one point or another, so that she doesn't know why she keeps going.
And let's be honest here. All of my characters are, at core, facets of me, whether it's not so obvious or whether you look at the character on the page and say, "Way to go, you've captured yourself really well here. But why'd you bother giving them a different name? It's you."
This song is... it's standing at the other end of depression, looking back and mourning the parts I couldn't save. It's smiling at a friend who's changed so much I barely recognize her. It's knowing that I'm losing, but not letting on that it hurts. It's bitter, and it's sad, and looking back and wondering why I didn't see it coming. It's being confused, because I never see it coming. It's burying myself in other things, because I couldn't do one important thing well. It's looking around and wondering why I'm not gone yet. It's wondering why everyone else is gone. It's putting in effort, effort that will never see any sort of return. It's looking at my mom and wondering why she just won't believe me. It's wondering when I'll ever let myself be in love, wondering how many opportunities I'm throwing away.
It's trying to save everyone around me. And letting myself down.



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
And 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 pray to God he hears you

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

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