Peak
18
Weeks
28
Score
3,682
Chart Year
2004
Scores & Rankings
Chart Performance
Peak Position18
Peak DateJul 31, 2004
Weeks at Peak2
Weeks Charted28
Weeks in Top 4018
Weeks in Top 100
Weeks at #20
Weeks at #10
Scoring
Summary Calc1,163
Weekly Calc2,519
Total Score3,682
Rankings
Year Ranking#52
Decade Ranking#487
Billboard Year#57
Top 5000#2,437
Details
- Label
- Red Ink Album Cut
- Genre
- Post-Grunge
- Media Type
- CD
- Composer(s)
- Jon Foreman;Tim Foreman
- Entered Chart
- Apr 3, 2004
- Peak Date
- Jul 31, 2004
- Released
- January 27, 2003
- Recorded
- Unknown
- Catalog #
- Album Cut
Music Video
There were three music videos made for this song. The first video features live performance footage, the second is a concept video depicting the band playing inside a house while the walls and insides are slowly being torn down, showing a resemblance to Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" music video, which the "Meant to Live" video has been compared to, and a third video is mixed into clips from Spider-Man 2, and was released exclusively in the UK. The first two videos featured audio mixed a key higher than the album version.
Notes
This is a song about finding fulfillment through God. The lyrics talk about imperfection of the world we live in, and why people were "Meant to live for so much more." It highlights an ongoing theme for Switchfoot, which is that the nihilism and entropy people feel in everyday life is due to a loss of identity and faith. The lyrics were written by their frontman Jon Foreman, who told Songfacts, "I'm thinking of life maybe a little bit more lyrically than a computer programmer or someone like that. But the good songs I always feel like they have very little to do with me." "Meant To Live" was included on the UK version of the soundtrack to the 2004 movie Spiderman 2, but it doesn't appear in the film. The lyrics were inspired by the poem The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot. Both the poem and the song are about the superficial sense of the world and how everyone is so hollow, and that we "Were meant to live for so much more, but we lost ourselves." Switchfoot released three albums before landing a record deal with Columbia in 2002. "Meant To Live," released in 2003, was their first single on the label and the opening song on their album The Beautiful Letdown, which found an audience in the Christian and secular communities. The song has endured as one of Switchfoot's most popular and one they almost always play live. Switchfoot played this song to a stadium crowd in East Rutherford, New Jersey on August 10, 2025 when The Jonas Brothers brought them on as special guests. The Jonas boys have named Switchfoot as one of their favorite bands and a huge influence. In 2023 they covered Switchfoot's song "The Beautiful Letdown" for a special edition of the album. Jon Bellion covered "Meant To Live" on that album.
Fumbling his confidence And wondering why the world has passed him by Hoping that he's bent for more than arguments And failed attempts to fly, fly We were meant to live for so much more Have we lost ourselves? Somewhere we live inside Somewhere we live inside We were meant to live for so much more Have we lost ourselves? Somewhere we live inside Dreaming about Providence And whether mice or men have second tries Maybe we've been livin' with our eyes half open Maybe we're bent and broken, broken We were meant to live for so much more Have we lost ourselves? Somewhere we live inside Somewhere we live inside We were meant to live for so much more Have we lost ourselves? Somewhere we live inside We want more than this world's got to offer We want more than this world's got to offer We want more than the wars of our fathers And everything inside screams for second life We were meant to live for so much more Have we lost ourselves? We were meant to live for so much more Have we lost ourselves? We were meant to live for so much more Have we lost ourselves? We were meant to live We were meant to live
Chart History (28 weeks)
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Apr 3, 2004 | 75 | 51 |
| 2 | Apr 10, 2004 | 70 | 56 |
| 3 | Apr 17, 2004 | 70 | 56 |
| 4 | Apr 24, 2004 | 68 | 58 |
| 5 | May 1, 2004 | 62 | 64 |
| 6 | May 8, 2004 | 53 | 73 |
| 7 | May 15, 2004 | 51 | 75 |
| 8 | May 22, 2004 | 46 | 80 |
| 9 | May 29, 2004 | 36 | 90 |
| 10 | Jun 5, 2004 | 31 | 95 |
| 11 | Jun 12, 2004 | 21 | 105 |
| 12 | Jun 19, 2004 | 20 | 106 |
| 13 | Jun 26, 2004 | 19 | 107 |
| 14 | Jul 3, 2004 | 19 | 107 |
| 15 | Jul 10, 2004 | 19 | 107 |
| 16 | Jul 17, 2004 | 19 | 107 |
| 17 | Jul 24, 2004 | 19 | 107 |
| 18 | Jul 31, 2004 | 18 | 108 |
| 19 | Aug 7, 2004 | 18 | 108 |
| 20 | Aug 14, 2004 | 22 | 104 |
Weeks 1–20 of 28
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