Chances Are, Five For Fighting Will Make You Cry

There’s an emotional resonance to the songs of John Ondrasik, who performs as Five For Fighting, and it’s the kind of depth that may sound like greeting card sentiments on the surface but once the words sink in and you relate them to your own experiences, tears well up.

Slice, the new album from Five For Fighting, has one of those moments with the last song, Augie Nieto. It’s about a man many of us have never heard of, who has ALS but who did some things with it that helped a lot of others suffering with the same disease. The clip below from Ondrasik’s performance of the song at this year’s Jerry Lewis telethon has more of Augie’s story in the notes; this version’s even better than the one on the album–perhaps because Augie himself is sitting on stage listening.

As the song says, “It’s not the breaths you take, it’s how you breathe.”