Singled Out: Saint Social's Don't Let The Fire Die

06-04-2024

Saint Social just released their new EP "Don't Let The Fire Die", and to celebrate we asked singer Quinn Erwin to tell us about the title track. Here is the story:

"Don't Let the Fire Die" is the marriage of the past and the present in one song. The guys and I in Saint Social were building out our set of songs, and we felt like we were missing one that would function like a single, but in the way that was an identifier of what we're about. It needed to be a call to action. In a way, we wanted it to sort of be our "We Will Rock You" moment maybe. We just knew that somehow, we wanted it to get our audience involved in some sort of action in our set or at least give an invitation to be a part of what we're doing. On my end, I knew I wanted it to feel more direct than anything I'd written, but not cheesy...just earnest. We talked about wanting this song to convey movement or joy as a form of resistance against giving up or letting hard emotions take over; not ignoring or stuffing them by any means, but processing through them with the whole self...physical action. That's where the idea of "Clap your hands 'til you feel alright..." were born.

It just so happened that I had these lyrics from a long, long time before when I was falling apart that I didn't know where to place in any song up until this moment; like verses that are over a decade old. I was living in post-Katrina Biloxi at the time that I wrote what became the first verse of "Don't Let the Fire Die" while I was going through a dark depression. I'd lost faith in almost everything. I didn't know who I was or what was right or wrong. I was numb. I was a young English teacher, then, though and teaching my students actually saved my life. Somehow it gave me meaning and helped me to keep going on. All of us were rebuilding in one way or another.

I think the sentiment when I first put the words, "When you're holding candles to hurricanes..." to paper was a literal everyday reality living where I lived as much as I felt it internally, and I think it was me trying to encourage my students and me receiving words for myself that desperately needed to hear--we were all going through it. I just could never seem to finish the thought. I moved away from the Gulf Coast for nine years, slowly made my way into the music industry, wrote a lot more songs, but it wasn't until I moved back to the Coast that I woke up and realized that it was time for those words to find a home in a song right back where I started writing them in the first place!

I wrote verse two to bring the past and the present together and to round out the message of wisdom and love bringing comfort to the protagonist in our project.

Musically, we knew we needed a dance tune, and I felt bold enough to use words like "clap" and "dance" to go along with that beat. Our hope is that folks will want to move and sing loud and proud with us at shows.

The irony of all of it, is that after the song was complete, I went through another unexpected time of difficulty, and because of that, this song takes on a whole new meaning for me--I felt like it arrived before I was going to need it to carry me through my own darkness. Every time I sing now, it's like another reminder to keep going even for me, and what's more, I know the more people that listen and embrace it for themselves, the less any of us are alone. It really is a song that's meant to bring people together.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the EP here