45 (song)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“45”
Single by Shinedown from the album Leave a Whisper
Released	2003
Format	CD
Genre	Alternative metal
Length	4:09
Label	Atlantic Records
Shinedown singles chronology
"Fly From the Inside" (2003) 45 (2003) Simple Man (2004)

45 is a song by Hard Rock band Shinedown. The song was released on July 13, 2003 on the album Leave A Whisper. Following the album's release, "45" became a popular single. An acoustic cover of "45" was featured on the album's re-release on June 15, 2004.

Brent Smith (the lead singer and songwriters) has stated in an interview "The inspiration from the song really came from – I think a lot of people kinda take a literal sense because of the lyrics – but the song is basically about the day that you wake up and you look at yourself in the mirror and you finally decide that you want to try to become comfortable in your own skin, and realize that you’re gonna have to make yourself happy before you’re going to make anyone else happy. And basically, the 45 isn’t an actual literal term for a gun, I used it as a metaphor for the world, the 45 is actually the world and what it hands you every day of your life. When you get up, it’s a gift to be alive to begin with. A lot of different people, when I’ve talked about it, they said, “Do you really honestly mean that?” And I’m like, “Well, yeah.” Because I’ve been in that situation where I didn’t know if I wanted to continue going on and I didn’t know how to necessarily make myself comfortable with who I was, trying to find a way of learning more about myself. And you come from a dark place sometimes, and that’s really the reality of the song. It’s about overcoming and about moving forward. And it’s basically about understanding that it’s not always going to be good, but you really have no one to blame for yourself if you don’t move forward. That’s where the whole, “Nobody knows what I believe,” [comes from] because we’re all individuals. So that’s really where it comes from, it’s about moving on, really."^[1]

"45" placed 12th among US Modern Rock and 3rd among US Mainstream Rock songs after its release.

[edit] Music Video Controversy

The music video for "45" was banned from MTV because Shinedown refused to change the words of the chorus.

In the same interview, Brent stated, "Yeah, they sent a treatment over, and this was how it went: 'And I’m [long pause], swimming through the [long pause],' and I said, 'No. That’s retarded.' I just said, 'You don't want to play it because of the words; don’t play it, I don't care.' At that time, I had a hard time with the company, meaning the network, about that, because I said, 'If you can show,' –- and this has nothing to do with my feelings toward Rap music, Hip/Hop, R&B, things like that; but it seems like those individuals and those artists could get away with whatever they wanted to, but I'm sitting here talking about a subject matter that I felt needed to be heard, and they were like, 'It’s too literal, you're being too blunt about it –- and I said, 'Jay-Z has 99 problems and you don't have a problem showing him getting shot on your network, I don't see why you have a problem with me saying I'm staring down the barrel of a 45, even though the fact is I'm not even talking about an actual gun."

[edit] References