Songfacts®:

• Dierks Bentley wrote and recorded this slow, emotional tune for the movie, Only the Brave. The motion picture tells the story of Arizona's Granite Mountain Hotshots, an elite wildlands firefighting crew that lost 19 firefighters in a 2013 blaze.
• "Hold the Light" is the first song that Bentley has written specifically for a motion picture. He collaborated on the track with Only the Brave soundtrack composer Joe Trapanese, Nashville tunesmith Jon Randall and Bon Iver drummer S. Carey.
• The poignant ballad honors and embodies the spirit of the true heroism depicted in the film as well as echoing the grief of the ones the fallen heroes left behind.
  
  If you walk the ridge
  You will find the marks and scars
  Kneel down by the tree under the setting stars
  Never say goodbye.
  
  "This is at the top, if not the most meaningful experience I've ever been a part of," Bentley said. "It hits me harder than any other song I've had a chance to be a part of … [O]ur goal was to create a message of hope and love. I'm honored to have been a part of it."
• Arizona native Dierks Bentley first took action in 2013 when he organized and hosted the Country Cares Concert in Arizona, which raised more than half a million dollars for the families of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. Carey also has a personal connection to Only the Brave: His brother-in-law is a wildlands firefighter.
• When composing this tune, Bentley and Carey made sure that the film's theme fitted seamlessly within the song's lyrical message.
  
  "I tried to write a few other [potential songs for the film], but I just couldn't leave that song, because it was just too perfect for the movie," Bentley admitted to Billboard. "That time of darkness and [the themes of] holding onto to the light and hope and having it play during that part of the movie was just a 'one plus one equals three' type of scenario, where it is all combines in a powerful spot."