Rachel Platten Talks Performing ‘Fight Song’ at NFL Game in Honor of LA Fire Victims & First Responders: ‘Sometimes Music Can Do What Words Can’t’

Ever since its release in 2015, Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song” has become a musical representation of hope for anyone overcoming obstacles or struggling with tragedy.

As the wildfires in Los Angeles continue to devastate the city, Platten took the stage at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on Monday (Jan. 13) to perform her hit before the playoff game between the LA Rams and the Minnesota Vikings. “It was such an emotional night. It was so much bigger than me and the song,” she tells Billboard of the moment, which served as a tribute to victims of the fires as well as first responders who are risking their lives to save their city.

Platten and her family are thankfully safe, and were able to return home after a precautionary evacuation. “My heart breaks,” she says. “We know friends who have lost their houses, friends whose schools have burned down. It’s horrifying, and it’s been a really scary experience.”

During her “Fight Song” performance, Platten switched up the line in the song’s first verse — “I might only have one match/ But I can make an explosion” — to a fitting and more appropriate lyric given the circumstances: “We might have been knocked down/ But I know we’ll keep going.”

“I feel really incredibly grateful for the whole night,” she says. “We can do so many things with tragedy. We can mourn together, and we can cry together — but then there are also times to be strong together. What I felt on stage was, ‘May this song touch people like medicine, may this song be healing.’ I did feel feel a reverberation and an echo in the stadium of that hunger for hope in the midst of darkness. Sometimes music can do what words can’t.”

Platten hopes to continue her message of hope as she embarks on her Set Me Free tour, which kicks off on March 17 in Denver, Colo., and hits multiple cities including Los Angeles before wrapping on May 9 in Orlando, Fla. “It’s freedom, and it’s earned joy, not superficial way of celebration,” she says of the upcoming run of live shows. “It’s the kind of joy where you’ve been through some shit, and you’ve seen pain and you’ve seen tragedy, and you are choosing to stay strong and resilient. We’re all going to sing and dance, but we’re also going to cry and feel our feelings. Hopefully, the whole tour gives people permission to feel everything.”

Watch Platten perform “Fight Song” before the Rams and Vikings game below.