Lightning Crashes

Infobox Single
Name = Lightning Crashes


Artist = Live
from Album = Throwing Copper
Released = 1995
Format = Cassette, CD
Recorded = 1993
Genre = Alternative rock
Post-grunge
Length = 5:27
Label = Radioactive Records
Writer = Live
Producer = Jerry Harrison, Live
Certification =
Last single = "I Alone"
(1994)
This single = "Lightning Crashes"
(1995)
Next single = "All Over You"
(1995)

"Lightning Crashes" is a song by alternative rock group Live from their 1994 album, "Throwing Copper".

While it wasn't officially released as a commercially purchasable single in the United States, the song received enough radio airplay to peak at the #12 position on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay music chart in 1995. The song also topped the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks and Mainstream Rock Tracks charts also in 1995. Because it was not released as a commercial single in the United States, it was ineligible for the Billboard Hot 100. Despite this, it's considered to be the biggest hit of Live's career.

The song was also a top 40 hit in the United Kingdom. The U.K. single was released in several formats and versions.

ong meaning

The band dedicated the song to Barbara Lewis, a 19 year-old friend of the band who was killed in 1993 by a drunk driver who was fleeing from the police after a robbery in York, Pennsylvania. Barbara had many of her organs donated including a liver to a 10 month old baby, and the song lyrics reflect how her death enabled others to continue living. After the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, Ed Kowalczyk would frequently dedicate the song to the victims at live shows.

Soon after the Oklahoma City Bombing on April 19, 1995, a local radio station mixed in news clippings, audio clips of U.S. President Bill Clinton and Governor of Oklahoma Frank Keating responding to the attack, along with other sounds (such as ambulance and fire engine sirens) of that day.

Track listing

All songs written by Live:

European single

# "Lightning Crashes" [Edit] – 4:29
# "Lightning Crashes (Glastonbury '95)" [Live] – 5:16
# "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

U.K. 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

U.K. CD single 2 (RAXXD 23)