Set Me On Fire

Album: Between The Stars (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • The lead single from Flyleaf's Between The Stars album, the explosive track hit rock and alternative radio formats on July 7, 2014. "It's about the passion we feel when we first fall in love and our emotions are running high, along with our thirst for this great life and all it has to offer," explained lead vocalist Kristen May. "There is so much beauty, excitement and hope in this world and when we collide with one another and fall in love, magic happens. I hope everyone turns this song up to eleven, and sings at the top of their lungs."
  • The song's music video was shot with director Noel Maitland (Speechless, Kings of Summer) in an abandoned warehouse in downtown Los Angeles. The Flyleaf band members felt that their first visual with new singer Kristen May should be a fairly straightforward performance clip. "We have tried to do all these narrative videos in the past, and they never really translated. The ideas were always a little convoluted," guitarist Sameer Bhattacharya told Billboard magazine. "I think for our first video with Kristen, we wanted it to be just a performance video to show everyone that this is what it is. I think it was a great move."
  • Flyleaf found inspiration for the lyrics within a rather unconventional place. "Pat (Seals, bass), Kristen, and I had just finished reading Veronica Roth's Divergent," recalled Bhattacharya. "Something in the story resonated with us. It's that moment of finding yourself."

    "Mark Twain said something really powerful," he added. "He wrote, 'The two most important days of your life are the day you're born and the day you find out why.' 'Set Me On Fire' represents that realization."
  • In our interview with Kristen May, she talked about how the challenges in taking over for Lacey Sturm, Flyleaf's original lead singer, played into this song and it's inspiration, the book Divergent. "I really related to the main character, Tris," said May. "She's experiencing all these new situations for the first time and instead of being scared of them, she just jumps in, and she finds out how exhilarating that can be."

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