Songfacts®:

• In our interview with Ryan Star, he explained that this song was inspired by his girlfriend Hallie. Said Ryan: "'Breathe' is a song that I wrote on a very personal note. She's someone I really care about, and I wanted to say that it's going to be okay, we're going to get through this together, just breathe, it's gonna be fine. And then, like a lot of these songs, the time we're living in – on a social note – can be the same thing: we're gonna get through this, we always do, let's just breathe. It's gonna be fine. So it's a comforting song saying if it hurts, let it out. But we're gonna be okay, and hold my hand through this."
• A fan favorite on the TV show Rock Star: Supernova, Ryan has an interesting take on how to connect with an audience, which often comes out in this song. He told us: "I feel completely blessed to have written a song like this. I travel around the country and I tour my ass off. I'm a road dog, I love that interaction with people. As much of a hermit as I was making this song, now that I'm out there – and it's one thing to go on Twitter and Facebook and all that stuff, but it's another thing actually touching – literally touching the people and seeing what they're about.
  When I meet people on the road is when all of the sudden that world between writing songs in my room alone, as a craft and an art – that's the thing I love – all of the sudden becomes bigger than that. It becomes, Wow! Well, now you're singing it for people. This is the other side of music. This is the other side of songwriting that people don't think about sometimes, where you're not just writing a song, you're then singing it for people. And people forget that sometimes. Especially in the years of artists being handed songs that they have no connection to, and people writing songs for them. You lose that connection. So 'Breathe' is a song where, after the show I'll go up to someone and they'll be strangers, their friends will tell me a story about themselves. 'I needed to hear those words because this happened to me this week,' and it's a heavy thing. I mean, they're sharing such intense moments of their life with you. And you're just meeting them. And it's because of music, I think, and that's why I say it's a blessing to have that song. It means the absolute world to me these days, especially to sing it around the country."
• The author Stephen King sometimes refers to his characters as his "darlings," so maybe it's not so strange that Ryan calls his songs his "kids." And this one had to grow up fast. Says Star: "My manager passed away when I first wrote 'Breathe' and it was his favorite song. I always say it had to grow up quick; of all the kids in this album, that song got into the real world quick. And I played it at his funeral, for his family. I played it at my cousin's wedding, too. So it's a song for all occasions. It was like, Okay, kid, grow up. This is you and you gotta get out there and sing it. And I'm just proud of it. I don't have children, and these songs are my children, and I'm proud of that one a lot, really. That's the doctor in the family."
• The song featured on ABC TV network soap opera's All My Children in the episode airing July 28, 2010.