Papa Roach released the single “Leave A Light On (Talk Away The Dark)” on November 24, 2023, in a package pairing studio and live recordings. The ballad had first appeared on the band’s 2022 album Ego Trip. Its expanded title connected a song about personal support to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Talk Away the Dark campaign, with the band pledging royalties to the organization.
For singer Jacoby Shaddix, the song began with a promise to his children. In an August 2022 interview with GRAMMY.com, he explained that he wanted his sons to know they could come to him as they grew up and faced their own problems. He had deliberately made room for those conversations at home, drawing on the support he’d received from his mother. The arrangement followed the same direct approach. Shaddix said many Papa Roach songs began on acoustic guitar or piano before being developed further. This one stayed with those instruments, giving that reassurance a quieter setting on Ego Trip.
He’d already heard how the song affected people close to him. In a November 2023 interview with Loudwire Nights, Shaddix recalled playing the track for a friend and then his brother-in-law; both cried. Papa Roach had wanted Ego Trip to explore extremes, he explained, and this song’s place on the record depended on stripping the performance back. The point was the commitment inside the lyric. “The message of this song is being there for somebody that you love, no matter what,” he told host Chuck Armstrong.
The band gave that idea a place in its fall 2023 shows. On the Revolutions Live tour, a video message from Shaddix introduced the song and addressed suicide prevention. In AFSP’s February 2024 announcement, Shaddix explained that the band had added the track to the final leg of the Ego Trip cycle to find out whether audiences would connect with it as strongly as the musicians did. He described recognizing that connection from the first show. The official live video carried the performance beyond the tour.
The partnership also changed what happened when people listened. Papa Roach adopted the campaign name as part of the single’s title and committed to donating royalties in perpetuity. AFSP described the band’s support as funding research, public education, advocacy and programs for people who had lost someone to suicide. That gave the rerelease a specific purpose beyond extending an album campaign: use of the song would contribute to the charity after the tour had finished.
Carrie Underwood joined a new recording released on August 2, 2024. She had attended the tour’s Nashville stop, where the band performed the song alongside its suicide-prevention message. The duet was recorded in Nashville, and Underwood described herself as a fan of Papa Roach who supported the song’s purpose. Her participation extended the same fundraising commitment to another version: both Underwood and Papa Roach pledged their royalties from the collaboration to AFSP in perpetuity.
