This is just a collection of quotes by Jason Wade from interviews and concerts where he's talking about the meanings and inspirations behind his songs. I found quotes for all the songs I could and organized them by song. If you find any quotes from songs that aren't listed, leave a comment so I can add them.


No Name Face

Hanging By a Moment:
"It's a spiritual song. It's not the prom song it turned out to be, but when you're writing a song, you never know how people are going to interpret it. But to me that song is totally spiritual." -Jason (listenin.org)

"It's a song about spiritual searching in my pursuit to get closer to God." -Jason (forum)

Sick Cycle Carousel:
"It's about my relationship with my girlfriend. There was a specific time when we felt the struggles of going through a relationship, of trying to communicate and going through all the things you go through to get to that point of real depth. I wrote the song during the most crucial time when we were either going to break up, or continue our relationship." -Jason (theonlinemusicsource.com)

Unknown:
"The lyrics to Unknown to me, when I look at them on paper just kind of have a feeling of not knowing the future, and sometimes having faith that everything is going to be okay is hard sometimes, but it's important to keep that positive mindset." -Jason (listenin.org)

Somebody Else's Song:
"Probably my favorite lyric is 'I have somebody else's thoughts in my head. I want some of my own.' I guess that's kind of feeling like when, I wrote that when I was really young and I was in the mindset of you have everyone around you telling you what to think and what to believe, but until it becomes your own, you're really never going to be at peace. You have to kind of find out for yourself. And I think that's one thing that, when you're close with your parents, it's easy to kind of lean on their beliefs and the way they live their life, but when you're transitioning from like sixteen to eighteen, it really kind of -- you gotta spread your wings a little bit." -Jason (listenin.org)

Trying:
"The more people you get around in a group to all tell each other that they're okay, the safer you feel, but to step out on a limb and realize that not everything makes sense sometimes, you know, but you just have to trust. That's a hard place to be." -Jason (listenin.org)

"I wrote Trying when I was 15. It's about the same kind of spiritual searching as Only One. After my parents got divorced, I wrote the lyrics to it, then learned how to play guitar and came up with the melody. The song's about finding your way in life. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, what I wanted to become, not just in music but also who I was as a person. I consider Trying my first song, the first one I didn't scrap. The funny thing is, I can relate to it more now than I could back then. Sometimes I think, 'Man where did that come from?' I still feel the same emotion when I play it, so I guess it's pretty timeless; people can relate to it, no matter how old they are." -Jason (theonlinemusicsource.com)

Only One:
"I wrote Only One right after someone in my life did something I felt was totally wrong. It was a really tough time for me. I have these trails in my life, like my dad leaving and my not being with him anymore, and then this man, who I really looked up to, failing. Only One is about how sometimes people are just not there for you and you have to look somewhere else for guidance." -Jason (theonlinemusicsource.com)

Simon:
"I wrote it about a friend of mine who basically got picked on all day. He was bullied pretty much day in and day out, and the whole school ganged up on him, and just telling me his story was really dark, and I connected to that for some reason. I think part of it was I grew up in this village in Hong Kong for three years when I was like seven, and I was the only white kid, and the kids used to just torment me and my sister. They'd really pick on us, and I think that always stuck with me and I kind of have a soft spot for people that went through a similar experience." -Jason (listenin.org)

Cling and Clatter:
"It is kind of like about the chaos around you. This life is crazy, especially, you know like I keep talking about being on the road and having all these people around you. You almost have to fight for that quiet place." -Jason (listenin.org)

Breathing:
"Breathing is a prayer. It's really relevant. It's got like multi-meanings, especially for right now and everything that's happenning, you know -- It can be like a spiritual song. Obviously it's a love song, but to me it's a prayer. Even in the verses it talks about finding your way back to sanity, and to me that represents just not really knowing where you're going, but just being content with asking and in the journey." -Jason (listenin.org)

"This is another love song that can be interpreted in a couple of different ways. The verses say. 'I'm finding my way back to sanity again.' So it's like trying really hard and then getting back to the place you started from. Then the bridge says 'I don't want a thing from you / Bet you're tired of me waiting for the scarps to fall off of your table to the ground.' It's kind of like not wanting anything from anyone, not hanging on every word they say and just having faith you'll be able to 'be here now,' which is how the song ends." -Jason (theonlinemusicsource.com)

Quasimodo:
"It almost has the same theme as Simon. ...I think that the imagery of Quasimodo, obviously from The Hunchback of Notre Dame is, when you're the outcast you kind of feel like a freak sometimes. There are a couple of songs that I write with those themes." -Jason (listenin.org)

"Quasimodo is a character who's chained down by people trying to get him to conform...He goes along with it 'cause he's afraid. But by the chorus, he's breaking out of that ... So it ends hopefully." -Jason (learningfromlyrics.org)

Somewhere In Between:
"Before my girlfriend and I got together, she had broken up with this guy. I'd been head-over-heels for her for years even though she was dating him. So they broke up, and I was like, 'Man, if I don't make a move now, I may never get a chance.' I was always friends with her but never really could get a step further. So I started taking her out to dinners and stuff. She was a little bit on the rebound, but I think she had some feelings for me. We were at that point where we weren't sure if we were dating or not, or even if she really liked me in that way. It was a very vulnerable time for me and that's when I wrote Somewhere In Between. I poured all those feelings into the song. Then I played it for her and that was it -- we were together." -Jason (theonlinemusicsource.com)

Everything:
"It kind of sums up everything I'm about lyrically and in terms of my relationships and Lifehouse overall." -Jason (theonlinemusicsource.com)


Stanley Climbfall

Spin:
"I think when I first started writing the lyrics to Spin, it was right after our first record broke, and my life completely changed -- everything from travelling to being on tour for three years, and it was an amazing time and a confusing time all at the same time, and I think that's what I meant. You know, my world's upside-down, I don't even know what time zone I'm in, but I wouldn't be doing anything else. I love where I'm at right now, even in all the confusion." -Jason (listenin.org)

Wash:
"You wash over me like rain, you fall over me like sunshine -- The truth is, you can't have one without the other. You can't truly know happiness without having experienced sadness." -Jason (theonlinemusicsource.com)

The Sky Is Falling:
"I wrote this after September 11th. I didn't write it specifically about that, but it's my observation on how quickly people can fall back into their everyday lives even after something unbelievably terrible has happened." -Jason (theonlinemusicsource.com)

Anchor:
"I didn't realize it while I was writing this, but someone pointed out that the stanza 'Hold my hand while I'm sinking in the sand -- no one else would understand,you are my anchor' can be taken two ways: You can love someone, but they can bring you down, too." -Jason (theonlinemusicsource.com)

Am I Ever Gonna Find Out:
"I don't think you're ever really gonna find out. It's one of those things where if you knew everything, what would be the fun of getting there? So I don't think you are ever going to figure it all out until you're gone." -Jason (listenin.org)

"I ask myself questions all the time: 'Where am I? What am I doing here?' or 'Why was I put here?' And for me, the joy of music is when I hear feedback from someone who says the songs have helped them get through a rough period in their life. That's the most meaningful thing. Sometimes, it seems you've found the answers you're looking for. But I don't think you ever truly find them. Nothing will completely make sense and just click. So this song is justa bout the questions I'vebeen asking for the last six or seven years, since when I first started doing music. 'Am I ever gonne find out?' The song leaves the question unanswered." -Jason (theonlinemusicsource.com)

Stanley Climbfall:
"I developed a character about a guy who's had negative experiences and positive experiences. That character means to me literally, 'Stand, climb, fall' and that to me is life. The whole song is about learning from the negative, accepting anyplace in life where you're at, whether it's going really well or going really bad. You need both of them to be balanced." -Jason (univercity.com)

Out of Breath:
"The record's overall theme is about moving forward, being on the run. But I believe if you over-think a song or lyric, it takes away its special quality. I'm more of the school that says let the song happen and figure out what it's about later." -Jason (theonlinemusicsource.com)

Just Another Name:
"Just Another Name is just a story I made up in my mind about a girl that moved to, in my mind somewhere like Los Angeles to become an actress, and got famous and then lost herself inside of all the craziness, and what she tried to find, she ended up losing herself in. Sometimes I just write stories about even fictional characters." -Jason (listenin.org)

Take Me Away:
"It's kind of like being at your wits end. The lyric 'I've got nothing else to say, just take me away,' I guess that is about surrender. It's about not giving up, but asking for help and realizing that you can't do it on your own, I guess. And wanting to escape. Sometimes life gets hard and you just want to give up and have someone take you away." -Jason (listenin.org)

"This is a spiritual song I wrote after September 11th. It's a love song. It's about wanting to escape from the condition of the world right now." -Jason (theonlinemusicsource.com)

My Precious:
"The song came out of nowhere [while I] was in the studio, and in the moment, we recorded it." -Jason (univercity.com)

Empty Space:
"This is about the good and the bad, the struggle between beauty and darkness and how they're intertwined. What keeps relationships together is often what drives them apart." -Jason (theonlinemusicsource.com)

The Beginning:
"The reason why we put that song last is because of the lyric 'start over after ending,' and I like the idea of ending a song with kind of a bridge going into the next record or other projects that we might do." -Jason (Stanley Climbfall DVD)


Lifehouse

You and Me:
"You know when you start to fall for someone but you're not sure if they return the feeling? You could be in a room full of people, but all you see is her. It's like being in the eye of a hurricane-everything else is swirling around you, but you're totally fixated on this person, and you're wondering, 'Does she feel it, too?'" -Jason (lyrics.christianpost.com)

Blind:
"This song is about being from a broken home." -Jason (Extra Rocks)

Better Luck Next Time:
"This is a song I wrote for my father. He's an interesting, interesting guy. He has a bit of irony to his life. He's a marriage tharapist that just got married for the fourth time." -Jason (Pacific Amphitheatre concert)

"My parents split when I was 12, and on some level I'm still dealing with it. I can face it now in a way I couldn't then." -Jason (lyrics.christianpost.com)

Days Go By:
"I just jotted down the lyrics and instead of going in and trying to write a song about something, I ended up writing the song and trying to figure out what it was about afterwards." -Jason (DirectTV Freeview interview)


Who We Are

Disarray:
"You know, I think Disarray is a song about struggling with your inner demons, or even the fear of not knowing where your life is going. When I was writing that I was just trying to work through some of my own feelings about living on this bus and touring with these guys, and making music and not really knowing two weeks ahead of me. So I was just kind of trying to figure out some confusion, I guess." -Jason (listenin.org)

First Time:
"For me, I've been married for six years, so when I wrote that song it had this kind of young, energetic feel to it, and so I wanted to reflect the lyrics of when I first kind of fell in love when I was like sixteen, seventeen years old, and it was like first butterflies, but it is, it's a simple catchy little love song." -Jason (listenin.org)

"It just felt urgent, like a first kiss, a first love, like the first time you realize there’s more to that relationship than you thought. I had to dig a little for that one, but I find myself at a place where I can write stuff that’s a little deeper than your average love song in terms of emotion" -Jason (lifehousemusic.com)

Whatever It Takes:
"It's about relationship, and just the turmoil sometimes that you go through and just the feeling of when you get in a fight with someone and you feel like you screwed up or let someone down, but not giving up on a relationship, just doing obviously whatever it takes to move foreward. I think for me personally, it's like our generation our parents just have a plan B. You know, they give up too easily, and I think it's my statement of like, I don't want that to happen to me." -Jason (listenin.org)

"Yeah, it's definitely from personal experiences of being in that relationship for seven years now. It's kind of a difficult subject matter when you're a touring musician and trying to balance home life with touring and make it work. It can bring a lot of frustrations sometimes. ...It's just learning to give and take, and I've had to do a lot better at communicating." -Jason (BusinessWeek)

Who We Are:
"I feel like life is a journey, and as soon as you think that you've figured everything out or you know exactly where your life is going, it's like what's the point of living anymore, you know. It's like getting there is half the fun. I mean not knowing your future and not knowing what tomorrow is going to bring is great, because there's something to look forward to." -Jason (listenin.org)

Broken:
"I took a trip out to Nashville, Tenn. This was actually the last song to make it on the record. I flew out to Nashville with no other intention than to see my friend, who is on a dialysis machine everyday. He basically needs another kidney. He’s going through a second kidney transplant. It broke my heart to see him like that and basically inspired me all at the same time. I hung out with him that day, and I went back to my hotel room, and I was really restless. I just couldn’t sleep. It was one of those songs I really look forward to writing, because it almost wrote itself. I woke up at three in the morning, and I just got out the hotel paper, and I just started writing. It basically happened in 15 minutes, and I hadn’t written a song like that, that happened that fast, since Hanging by a Moment." -Jason (amp.az interview)

The Joke:
"I read this article awhile back about this kid that was bullied every day. He lived in the U.K., and basically he committed suicide, and I tried two or three times to come up with a story from a narrator’s perspective." -Jason (amp.az interview)

"The song is a little dark, but I felt really compelled to write that song as a warning … These kids can never escape it." -Jason (Daily Trojan)

Make Me Over:
"Sometimes you’ll do anything to be in love, even becoming someone else." -Jason (lifehousemusic.com)

Bridges:
"Actually, that's probably one of the only ones that I drew inspiration from my father about. And I've had a couple of friends that I've lost contact with over the years, you know. It seems like sometimes you see people's true colors when the years go by, and you see what relationships are strong and that you're going to have forever, and the ones that are just kind of fleeting moments in your life, and I don't know but, it's easy to point the finger when you lose a relationship out of a fight or whatever, and Bridges is kind of like, the lyric 'We both lit the match that burned the bridge' to me is just kind of saying -- you know, it was both of our faults, and lets just be cool with each other, and we don't have to hate each other." -Jason (listenin.org)

Learn You Inside Out:
"The three of us were trying to come up with new ideas all day and we were creatively tapped out and ready to go home. I sat down at the piano and came up with these chords. Then Rick started playing a drum groove, Bryce chimed in with a cool bassline, our engineer hit ‘record’, and we literally had the song done in 15 minutes! You never know when the inspiration will hit or that kind of magic will happen. But that’s what we love about what we do." -Jason (Songwriter Universe Magazine)

Storm:
"Storm is one of our oldest songs that I wrote when I was sixteen, just about kind of leaning on my faith to get me through a very difficult time of feeling really isolated." -Jason (listenin.com)

"We love the idea of the title, surrounded by negative space, like the a cappella beginning. Because when you’re lost in confusion, no matter how much is going on around you, you’re still alone." -Jason (lifehousemusic.com)


Misc

From Where You Are
"Jude Cole asked if I wanted to write a song for this commercial. And I said I'd take a look at it. It was a really powerful 45-second clip and I just really connected to it and I had a feeling like I could probably write something. ...When I saw the commercial, my first thought kind of brought me back to when I was 16 and a friend of mine got in a car accident -- a head-on collision -- like literally two months after he got his license and passed away. And so that was really, really hard on us as his friends but I just remember what it did to his parents and his family. It just kind of broke them all apart. And so I wanted to write the song kind of from a parent's perspective of what it must be like -- or a brother's or sister's perspective -- to lose a family member. So I kind of had the personal connection, but my main instinct was to kind of write it from a parent's perspective." -Jason (BusinessWeek)