45 (Shinedown song)

2003 single by Shinedown

"45"

Single by Shinedown
from the album  Leave a Whisper
Released| July 29, 2003
Recorded| 2002
Genre|

* Hard rock[1]
* post-grunge[2]

Length| 4:09
Label| Atlantic
Songwriter(s)|

* Brent Smith
* Tony Battaglia

Producer(s)| Tony Battaglia
Shinedown singles chronology
| "Fly from the Inside"
(2003)  | "45"
(2003)  | "Simple Man"
(2004)

|
|

"45" is a song by American rock band Shinedown. The song was released on July 13, 2003, on the album Leave a Whisper. Following the album's release, "45" became a popular single. An acoustic cover of "45" was featured on the album's re-release on June 15, 2004.

"45" placed twelfth among U.S. Modern Rock and third among U.S. Mainstream Rock songs after its release.

## Background

[edit]

Brent Smith (the lead singer and songwriter) has stated in an interview:

> The inspiration from the song really came from – I think a lot of people kinda take a literal sense because of the lyrics – but the song is basically about the day that you wake up and you look at yourself in the mirror and you finally decide that you want to try to become comfortable in your own skin, and realize that you’re gonna have to make yourself happy before you’re going to make anyone else happy. And basically, the 45 isn’t an actual literal term for a gun, I used it as a metaphor for the world, the .45 is actually the world and what it hands you every day of your life. When you get up, it’s a gift to be alive to begin with. A lot of different people, when I’ve talked about it, they said, “Do you really honestly mean that?” And I’m like, “Well, yeah.” Because I’ve been in that situation where I didn’t know if I wanted to continue going on and I didn’t know how to necessarily make myself comfortable with who I was, trying to find a way of learning more about myself. And you come from a dark place sometimes, and that’s really the reality of the song. It’s about overcoming and about moving forward. And it’s basically about understanding that it’s not always going to be good, but you really have no one to blame for yourself if you don’t move forward. That’s where the whole, “Nobody knows what I believe,” [comes from] because we’re all individuals. So that’s really where it comes from, it’s about moving on, really.[3]

## Music video and controversy

[edit]

The band requested that the music video for "45" be removed from MTV broadcast[4] because the lyrics "the barrel of a .45" and "ashes of another life" were removed from the chorus and the title card of the video referred to the song by the MTV-originated title "Staring Down..." Singer Brent Smith felt the editing blurred the song's message and MTV was hypocritical since they had played other unedited videos. Smith believed that if they did not wish to play the song as it was written, they should never have broadcast it. Though the edited version of the video was aired a few times without the artists' consent, the song was eventually pulled from the airwaves.

## Charts

[edit]

Chart (2004)  | Peak
position

|

US Alternative Airplay (Billboard)[5] | 12
US Mainstream Rock (Billboard)[6] | 3

## Certifications

[edit]

Region  | Certification | Certified units/sales

|
|

United States (RIAA)[7] | Platinum  | 1,000,000‡

‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "10 Best Shinedown Songs". Loudwire. 10 January 2013.
2. ^ Graves, Wren (May 20, 2024). "50 Best Post-Grunge Songs". Consequence. Retrieved April 1, 2025.
3. ^ "FoundryMusic.Com Interviews: INTERVIEW WITH BRENT SMITH OF SHINEDOWN". Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-05-21.
4. ^ "Brent Smith of Shinedown". Archived from the original on 2009-01-05. Retrieved 2009-05-24.
5. ^ "Shinedown Chart History (Alternative Airplay)". Billboard. Retrieved August 18, 2020.
6. ^ "Shinedown Chart History (Mainstream Rock)". Billboard. Retrieved August 18, 2020.
7. ^ "American single certifications – Shinedown – 45". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved June 23, 2016.

* v
* t
* e

Shinedown

* Brent Smith
* Barry Kerch
* Zach Myers
* Eric Bass

* Jasin Todd
* Brad Stewart
* Nick Perri

Studio albums|

* Leave a Whisper
* Us and Them
* The Sound of Madness
* Amaryllis
* Threat to Survival
* Attention Attention
* Planet Zero

EPs|

* iTunes Session
* Acoustic Sessions

Singles|

* "Fly from the Inside"
* "45"
* "Simple Man"
* "Burning Bright"
* "Save Me"
* "I Dare You"
* "Heroes"
* "Devour"
* "Second Chance"
* "Sound of Madness"
* "If You Only Knew"
* "The Crow & the Butterfly"
* "Diamond Eyes (Boom-Lay Boom-Lay Boom)"
* "Bully"
* "Unity"
* "Enemies"
* "I'll Follow You"
* "Adrenaline"
* "Cut the Cord"
* "State of My Head"
* "Asking For It"
* "How Did You Love"
* "Devil"
* "Get Up"
* "Monsters"
* "Attention Attention"
* "Atlas Falls"
* "Planet Zero"
* "Daylight"
* "A Symptom of Being Human"
* "Dance, Kid, Dance"

Music DVDs|

* Live from the Inside
* Somewhere in the Stratosphere

Related articles|

* Discography
* Volumes, 1 & 2

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