Song Lyric Sunday was created by Helen Vahdati from This Thing Called Life One Word at a Time and author Jim Adams from A Unique Title For Me is our current guest host. For complete rules or to join in the fun, click here.

The theme for Song Lyric Sunday this week is “Couple/Together/Us.”

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Nickelback’s lead singer and guitarist Chad Kroeger described Far Away on the Tour when in Australia as the “only real love song” that Nickelback has. He described many others as “being about love” but not solely about “being in love”.

With lyrics like ‘Cause with you, I’d withstand all of hell to hold your hand; I’d give it all I’d give for us Give anything, but I won’t give up… I’d have to agree!

Released in late 2005 or early 2006 in the United States, Far Away was a huge success for Nickelback in the U.S. and became the band’s fourth top ten single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 8. The song was the second top ten single from their latest album All the Right Reasons.

FUN FACTS:

• Though the group started as a cover band under the name Village Idiot, they later changed to Nickelback, which originated from the nickel in change that band member Mike Kroeger gave customers at his job at Starbucks; he would frequently say, “Here’s your nickel back.”
• Nickelback is one of the most commercially successful Canadian rock bands, having sold more than 50 million albums worldwide.
• In 2009, Billboard ranked them the most successful rock group of that decade; their song How You Remind Me was listed as the best-selling rock song and the fourth best-selling song of the decade overall. They were listed number seven on the Billboard top artist of the decade, with four albums listed on the Billboard top albums of the decade.
• Far Away was one of the songs most dedicated to firefighters battling the 2019-20 Australian Brush Fires.

The music video for Far Away was first shown on VH1’s V-Spot. Filmed at Green Timbers Park in Surrey, British Columbia just outside Vancouver, the video starts with a couple in bed, when a cellphone rings and the husband is forced to leave. It is revealed that he is a firefighter, and has been called to help fight a forest fire.

As the song moves on, we see the firefighters dropped right into the middle of the fire by a helicopter, which quickly overwhelms them and forces them to retreat. The husband goes back to help a fallen firefighter, and watches the helicopter leave without him. After the husband sees the helicopter leave, a large, fiery tree is seen falling, presumably onto him. This footage is inter-cut with his wife watching the news about the fire.

Later, she receives a phone call, and breaks down, as it appears that she has been informed that her husband has died. She rushes outside to see several firefighters emerge from a truck…including her husband, covered in soot. She rushes to him and hugs him, and the video ends.

The entire song also features inter-cuts to the band playing in a large, strobe light-filled red and orange room.

VH1 later named this video as the third best song on the Top 40 Videos Of 2006, behind Hips Don’t Lie by Shakira and ahead of SexyBack by Justin Timberlake.

Enjoy!

See my Song Lyric Sunday selection for Nesie’s Place!

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Disclaimer: I have no copyrights to the song and/or video and/or hyperlinks to songs and/or videos and/or gifs above. No copyright infringement intended.