On Fire (Switchfoot song)

"On Fire"
Song by Switchfoot from the album The Beautiful Letdown
Released	2003
Format	CD
Recorded
Genre	Soft rock, Alternative rock
Length	4 min 39 s
Label	Sony BMG
Writer	Jon Foreman Daniel Victor
Producer	John Fields

On Fire is a song by rock band Switchfoot from the 2003 double-platinum record The Beautiful Letdown. It was never released as a single, but is a prevailing fan favourite and is played at almost every show. It was written by Jon Foreman and Canadian artist/producer Daniel Victor in the fall of 2002.

In the media

It was featured in the movie The Ultimate Gift.

Live

The original concert version of this song featured a significantly different arrangement from the studio version. It was based around a new rhythm guitar part and ambient synthesizers, in contrast to the piano-driven original. Soon after the song's live introduction frontman Jon Foreman added harmonica to the arrangement. This incarnation of the song was frequently preceded by a short acoustic number which was then bridged into "On Fire" with a harmonica solo. The short acoustic song was generally a countryish number with lyrics rewritten each night to describe the city the band was playing in. In the band's 2005 Sessions@AOL performance of the song a brief cover of Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin' fulfilled this role.

During the Appetite for Construction Tour the arrangement was altered to sound more like the studio version, although the accordion was retained. During this tour, Jon Foreman would generally make a trip into the audience during the bridge, after the line "I'm standing at the edge of me." At several shows the Radiohead song High and Dry was snippeted during this break.