Songfacts®:

• This song's lyric is open to interpretation, but the video is unambiguous in it's message, especially at the end when lead singer Tim McIlrath says, "Every action has a reaction. We've got one planet, one chance."
  
  Directed by Kevin Kerslake, it's filled with scenes of clear-cut forests, polluted beaches, and animal suffering. Rise Against was active with PETA and wanted to use the video to make a statement. "The new video is easily the most important video of our career and just an important video that transcends Rise Against, punk rock, and everything," McIlrath told Punk News when it was released. "It's got much less to do with us than it does to deal with stuff that people shouldn't have to see. We really went totally overboard on it and we just put a whole lot of images on it that are going to make people think."
• As for the lyric, the hook is the line, "Now I'm standing on the rooftop, ready to fall." In context of the video, this could relate to the environment, but it could also be a mental state brought on by an interpersonal relationship or a number of other factors. It's possible the "she" in the song is Mother Earth.
• "Ready To Fall" was the first single from the fourth Rise Against album, The Sufferer & The Witness. It was their second with a major label (Geffen), which suited the band well; they liked having the budget to make a quality music video to get their message out. The band is rooted in punk rock, and that's where they stayed even after signing with Geffen. They remained activists with their music, championing issues like equality and peace.