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Lightning Crashes
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Wikipedia article
{{Infobox song
| name = Lightning Crashes
| cover = live_lightning_crashes.png
| alt =
| caption = Artwork for European retail releases
| type = single
| artist = Live
| album = Throwing Copper
| released = September 24, 1994
| recorded = 1993
| studio =
| venue =
| genre = {{hlist|Alternative rock||pop rock}}
| length = 5:27
| label = Radioactive
| writer = Live
| producer = Jerry Harrison, Live
| prev_title = I Alone
| prev_year = 1994
| next_title = All Over You
| next_year = 1994
}}
"'Lightning Crashes'" is a song by American rock band Live. It was released in September 1994 as the third single from their second studio album, 'Throwing Copper'. Although the track was not released as a single in the United States, it received enough radio airplay to peak at No. 12 on the 'Billboard' Hot 100 Airplay chart in 1995. The song also topped the 'Billboard' Album Rock Tracks chart for 10 weeks and the Modern Rock Tracks chart for nine weeks. Internationally, the song reached No. 3 in Canada, No. 8 in Iceland, and No. 13 in Australia.
Composition
The song is written in the key of C major but recorded a half step lower in B major.[http://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=mn0138354 Live "Lightning Crashes" Sheet Music] musicnotes.com
Song meaning
The band dedicated the song to a high school friend, Barbara Lewis, who was killed by a drunk driver in 1993.
Lead singer Ed Kowalczyk said, "I wrote 'Lightning Crashes' on an acoustic guitar in my brother's bedroom shortly before I had moved out of my parents' house and gotten my first place of my own." Kowalczyk says that the video for "Lightning Crashes" has caused misinterpretations of the song's intent.
While the clip is shot in a home environment, I envisioned it taking place in a hospital, where all these simultaneous deaths and births are going on, one family mourning the loss of a woman while a screaming baby emerges from a young mother in another room. Nobody's dying in the act of childbirth, as some viewers think. What you're seeing is actually a happy ending based on a kind of transference of life.Scarisbrick,John. "Lightning Strikes." 'Spin Magazine', June 1995, p. 52.
'New York' magazine described the band as "deeply mystical" and claimed that the song was, "The story of a...connection between an old lady dying and a new mother at the moment of giving birth."
Just a few years before, Kowalczyk discovered the writings of Indian spiritualist Jiddu Krishnamurti, whose philosophy of living life from a place of selflessness and humility influenced the singers songwriting process, as well as the bands creative philosophy.
Formats and track listings
All songs written by Live.
'European single'
# "Lightning Crashes" [Edit] 4:29
# "Lightning Crashes" (Glastonbury '95) [Live] 5:15
# "The Beauty of Gray" (Bootleg Version) [Live] 4:45
'German single'
# "Lightning Crashes" [Edit] 4:25
# "Operation Spirit (The Tyranny of Tradition)" 3:18
# "Good Pain" 5:39
#"Heaven Wore a Shirt" 3:38
#"Negation" 3:38
'UK CD single 1 (RAXTD 23)'
# "Lightning Crashes" 5:26
# "The Beauty of Gray" (Bootleg Version) [Live] 4:45
# "T.B.D." (Acoustic Version) 3:49
'UK CD single 2 (RAXXD 23)'
# "Lightning Crashes" 5:26
# "Lightning Crashes" (Glastonbury '95) [Live] 5:16
# "White, Discussion" (Glastonbury '95) [Live] 5:22
'UK cassette single'
# "Lightning Crashes" 5:26
# "Lightning Crashes" (Glastonbury '95) [Live] 5:16
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
In popular culture
"Lightning Crashes" was used at the end of episode 3 of 'Strange Luck', "Last Chance"
"Lightning Crashes" was used in Part II of 'The OA'.
"Lightning Crashes" was used at the beginning of the season 4 finale of 'One Tree Hill'.
"Lightning Crashes" was used prominently in the plot line, and consequently, the soundtrack, for the Netflix original film, 'Kodachrome', starring Jason Sudeikis and Elizabeth Olsen.
References
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