"The Good Left Undone" is the third single from Rise Against

Rise Against

Rise Against is an American punk rock band from Chicago, Illinois, formed in 1999. The band currently consists of Tim McIlrath , Zach Blair , Joe Principe and Brandon Barnes .Rise Against spent its first five years signed to the independent record label Fat Wreck Chords, on which it...

's fourth full-length album, The Sufferer & the Witness

The Sufferer & the Witness

-Personnel:Rise Against* Tim McIlrath – Lead vocals, rhythm guitar, guitar solo on "Prayer of the Refugee"* Joe Principe – Bass guitar, backing vocals* Chris Chasse – Lead guitar, backing vocals* Brandon Barnes – Drums, percussion...

. In June 2007, they announced that they would be holding a contest to determine who could make the best video for the song. They have released a bulletin over their MySpace

MySpace

Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....

 account giving information about the contest.

On June 25, 2007, the band premiered their own video on MTV's website, as well as on MTV2 every hour.

The song peaked at number six on the Billboard alternative rock chart, making it the band's second top 10 single (the first being previous single "Prayer of the Refugee

Prayer of the Refugee

"Prayer of the Refugee" is the second single from Rise Against's album The Sufferer and The Witness, and was released worldwide in 2006. The song was originally titled "Diaspora", with advance copies of the album using that title instead of "Prayer of the Refugee".The song is featured as a...

") and highest charting single from the album. The song has spent 30 weeks on the chart prior to this peak, making it the band's slowest climb to the chart's Top 10.

Composition

In an interview with theredalert.com front man Tim McIlrath was asked if the instrumental part at the end of the song was originally a separate piece of music. He replied: "That one was actually pure collaboration. With a lot of our songs, Joe Principe

Joe Principe

Joe Principe is the bass guitarist, backing vocalist and co-founder of the punk rock band Rise Against. He primarily uses Fender basses, Mesa amps and cabinets, and he uses pick-playing exclusively....

 will write the whole thing, or I'll write the whole thing, or Chris Chasse will write the whole thing, and then we'll all collaborate on little parts here and there. But 'The Good Left Undone' was really all 4 of us, Brandon Barnes

Brandon Barnes

Brandon Barnes is an American musician and producer from Denver, Colorado. He is best known as the drummer for the punk rock band, Rise Against. Barnes is the only member of the band who is not straight edge.-Biography:...

 included, all adding our own two cents." After the bridge of "Survive", the guitar part is that of the instrumental between "The Good Left Undone" and "Survive".

Trivia

• The song is featured in the compilation album
  Compilation album
  A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
  
   Big Shiny Tunes 12, released on November 20, 2007.

• The song was written and recorded with guitarist Chris Chasse but the music video features new guitarist Zach Blair, who joined the band in 2007.

Chart performance

Chart (2007)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks	6