A track from Creed's first album, Scott Stapp and Mark Tremonti wrote the song after hearing the news that one of Tremonti's best childhood friends had committed suicide. In our interview with Tremonti, he talked about the meaning: "It's a song about suicide and kids searching for that meaning of life. It's tough sometimes for kids in high school, junior high school, to go through a lot of the depression he went through that led him to commit suicide. So I wrote about that." As Tremonti remembers it, he wrote the music and also the verse and chorus lyrics - Stapp came up with the bridge. This became one of Creed's most popular songs, but it took a while to get there. The My Own Prison album was first released in April 1997 on an independent label called Blue Collar Records. It sold well enough in their home turf of Florida to get the attention of BMG subsidiary Wind-Up Records, which signed the band and brought in producer Ron Saint-Germain to remix it.
Wind-Up re-released the album and launched a promotional campaign, breaking the band nationally by distributing the title track to radio stations and commissioning a video, which did well on MTV. The next promotional single was "Torn," which was followed by "What's This Life For." By this time, the band was picking up traction on radio and the album was a top-seller.
In an effort to boost album sales, the Creed singles at this time weren't sold in the US, which made them ineligible for the Billboard Hot 100 chart. However, Billboard had another chart that perfectly suited Creed's sound: Mainstream Rock. In September 1998, "What's This Life For" became the band's first #1 on that chart, taking the top spot for six weeks. The first single from their follow-up album, Human Clay, was "Higher," which stayed at #1 for 17 weeks, longer than any other song in the chart's history to that point. The video was directed by Ramaa Mosley, who also did Creed's "Higher" video and "Superman (It's Not Easy)" for Five For Fighting.
Striking landscapes are a hallmark of Creed videos, and this one is set in the desert plains, where we see the band performing. In other scenes, we see various disaffected folks trying to escape their cumbersome lives, which they do at the end of the clip, joining the band at the end where they exult under a rain shower as Scott Stapp sings, "We all live under the rain."
Hurray for a child
That makes it through
If there's any way
Because the answer lies in you
They're laid to rest
Before they've known just what to do
Their souls are lost
Because they could never find
What's this life for
I see your soul, it's kind of gray
You see my heart, you look away
You see my wrist, I know your pain
I know your purpose on your plane
Don't say a last prayer
Because you could never find
What's this life for
But they ain't here anymore
Don't have to settle the score
Cause we all live
Under the reign of one king
But they ain't here anymore,
Don't have to settle no Goddamn score
'Cause we all live under the reign,
I said, you know, of
One king [x3]
But they ain't here anymore,
Don't have to settle no Goddamn score
'Cause we all live under the reign
I said, you know, of
One king [x3]
But they ain't here anymore,
Don't have to settle no Goddamn score
Cause we all live under the reign
Of one king
This song is about the tragedy of loss. It was primary written by Mark Tremonti who wrote the song after hearing the news that one of his best childhood friends had committed suicide.You can hear the loss in the lyrics themselves. Tragedy comes to all of us in one shape or another. It is inescapable and takes it;s toll. I'm not sure what Tremonti means by 'Cause we all live under the reign I said, you know, of ..One king [x3] perhaps it's a way of Tremonti saying things are inevitable. Perhaps it's his way of reflecting on depression and anxiety. What ever the motive behind these lyrics this song reaches out beyond the lyrics and points to hope or the lack of it with the question "What's this life for?" It is this question that surfaces in our devotional bible reading this morning taken from Psalm 23 which focuses on restored hope.
Viktor Emil Frankl was a physician and psychiatrist. He survived the World War II Holocaust. His Nazi concentration camp experiences led him to wonder how any human being could maintain hope under such extreme conditions. He came to believe that our survival depends upon finding meaning even in desperate circumstances. Frankl proposed that we have free will to choose our attitudes, even about torture, death, and dying. He observed that those human beings whose core spirits chose to have faith in the future and who find meaning in the moment, often found the strength and the courage to face the most difficult problems.
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way” (Victor Frankl. Man’s Search for Meaning, 1946).
It is when we find the “why” we want to live that we can endure almost any “how.” The “why” is our purpose. Frankl found that people with a high purpose can find meaning even in the worst circumstances. In other words, once we have a high calling we will find a way to deal with the suffering that comes our way. If, as Frankl saw, someone decides his or her reason to live is to comfort others, then even in a concentration camp he or she will still have a reason for living.
When we lose our sense of purpose, we lose a sense that our lives mean anything; and we lose hope in the future, for there seems to be nothing worth living for. What causes us to lose our sense of purpose and hope? Perhaps it is when our purpose is too small and too self-focused. Perhaps it's when we experience suffering and/or inhumanity that is outside our image of how the world should work. Could out lose of hope and prupose come about when we commit acts or have thoughts that fracture the image we have of ourselves as being good, kind, and caring human beings under all circumstances. There is, however, good news. Although we sometimes lose our sense of purpose, we can be restored to a larger sense of purpose. This is God's heart for each of us.
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