One of the most powerful things about music is that it is the soundtrack of our lives. Fellow music fanatic Sharon Hepworth started a music challenge on Twitter for the month of July. Each day, fans around the world will select a song from their life and describe what it means to us. These are my songs. #SoundtrackToYourLife
Day 26
This song brings me back to a moment my wife and I had while lounging on Psarou Beach in Mykonos. We felt like we were on top of the world. We were on our honeymoon. And we had just discovered the Greek Isles, our new favorite place in the world. A few college kids were nearby, laughing, drinking, not a care in the world. They had one song playing out loud on repeat. That song was “How to Save a Life”, a song that many of us played endlessly back in 2006-07. I remember that day on Psarou Beach like it was yesterday.
The song itself feels like a window into a bygone era. In those early 2000s, a resurgence of piano-based rock was happening with bands like The Fray and Keane. Having grown up playing piano, these bands appealed to me. How they were able to make songs that rocked as well as ballads like “How To Save A Life” with the instrument. This track, in particular, was beautiful in its simplicity – leaning on the piano’s single note arpeggios to dot the landscape of the song, while Slade laments on and on about wasted efforts to save a troubled teen. It brings me back to Psarou Beach every single time.
“I would have stayed up with you all night had I known how to save a life.”