Meant to Live

"Meant to Live" is a single by alternative rock band Switchfoot. It peaked at #5 on the US Modern Rock chart and U.S. Adult Top 40 chart, #6 on U.S. Top 40 radio, and #18 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. It is the first track on the group's 2003 major-label debut album The Beautiful Letdown, and was also featured in a UK version of a Spider-Man 2 "inspired by" album. In April 2005, the song was certified gold in the United States. The single is generally regarded as the song that helped the band achieve mainstream success.

Background

Lyrically this song was inspired by T. S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men." About the song, singer/writer Jon Foreman has said, "Maybe the kid in the song is me, hoping that I'm meant for more than arguments and failed attempts to fly. Something deep inside of me yearns for the beautiful, the true. I want more than what I've been sold; I want to live life." According to Foreman, this song was also inspired by U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."

To Live

To Live may refer to the following works

Grave Digger (band)

Grave Digger is a German heavy metal band formed in November 1980. They were part of the German heavy/speed/power metal scene to emerge in the early to mid-1980s.

Band History

After various appearances at small festivals, the band recorded two songs for the compilation album Rock from Hell in 1983. A year later, Grave Digger, now comprising Chris Boltendahl (vocals), Peter Masson (guitar), Willi Lackmann (bass) and Albert Eckardt (drums), released their debut album Heavy Metal Breakdown.

In 1985, with Lackmann having left the band, they recorded and released their second album Witch Hunter. Only after the album was completed, a replacement on bass was found in the form of C.F. Brank. Further festival appearances followed, a tour with Helloween as special guest and, finally, their third album War Games in January 1986. To promote this album, a triple headline tour with Celtic Frost and Helloween followed. Thereafter, Peter Masson gave way to Uwe Lulis; in 1987 the band's name was changed to Digger, the name under which they released the album Stronger Than Ever. This album hardly had anything in common with the earlier music of Grave Digger. It was more an attempt to reach the masses with mainstream rock like that of Bon Jovi or Van Halen. The album flopped, as it was not accepted by fans or the masses. As a result, Boltendahl declared, at the end of 1987, the breakup of the band.

To Live (novel)

To Live (simplified Chinese: 活着; traditional Chinese: 活著; pinyin: Huózhe) is a 1993 novel by Chinese novelist Yu Hua. It describes the struggles endured by the son of a wealthy land-owner after the Revolution fundamentally alters the nature of Chinese society. The contrast between his pre-revolutionary status as a selfish fool who (literally) travels on the shoulders of the downtrodden and his post-revolutionary status as a persecuted peasant are stark.

It was originally published in the Shanghai literary journal Harvest.

Yu Hua wrote in his introduction that the novel was inspired by the American folk song Old Black Joe.

Plot

Xu Fugui, son of a local rich man, is a compulsive gambler. After he gambles away the entire family fortune, his father dies with grief and indignation. The Chinese civil war is occurring at the time, and Fugui is forced to join the army. By the time he finally returns home two years later, he finds his mother has died of a stroke, and his daughter has become mute and lost most of her hearing from a fever. Years later, Fugui's only son dies due to medical negligence while he was donating blood. The daughter finally grows up and finds a husband. They are a happy couple until she dies from dystocia. Soon after that, Fugui's wife dies of osteomalacia, and his son-in-law dies in a construction accident. Eventually, even Fugui’s last relative, his grandson Kugen (renamed Mantou in the 1994 movie adaptation), chokes to death while eating beans. Finally out of relatives, Fugui buys an old ox to accompany him. While it seems like the world holds nothing left for Fugui, he never gives up.  Fugui believes there is still hope that things will get better.