Never Say Never (The Fray song)

Overall, critical response to "Never Say Never" was mixed. US Weekly found the single "riveting" and complimented on lead singer Isaac Slade's falsetto.[3] Another positive mention came from New Music Reviews: "When The Fray releases a single, you know it’s going to be amazing, and this is another one of those singles. Truly amazing again! 9/10."[4] AbsolutePunk described "Never Say Never" as "a syrupy ballad" that is "nothing short of astonishing. There's falsetto towards the end and its romantic, wistful and full of understated grace. Backed by strings and a swelling rhythm section, it's a polished and positive step forward [for the band]."[5]

However, David Sessions, editor of Patrol magazine, wrote: "It's the CCM formula without the Jesus: pre-bottled concoctions (strings, astral guitar strumming) slathered on to enliven a fatally soulless mix."[6] Glenn Gamboa, in a review for Newsday, criticized the song, and the album as a whole, for essentially "sound[ing] the same" as the band's previous work, noting: "It's not a bad sound, but it's also not a necessary one. The conservative songs of The Fray try to shut out the possibility of messing up, but they end up shutting out the possibility of succeeding as well."[7] A reviewer for musicOMH.com wrote: "'Never Say Never' and 'Ungodly Hour' are the band's closest approximations to the big Coldplay piano ballad, but without Chris Martin's quirky Englishness (and I never thought I would say that) both tracks ultimately collapse under the weight of their conceits."[8]

Destroyed Boeing 747 used on The Fray's "Never Say Never" music video.

On the March 14th episode of the VH1 Top 20 Video Countdown, the Fray stated in an interview that a video was in the works around that time. The music video for "Never Say Never" surfaced on the internet on April 17, but the video officially premiered on the internet only on April 24, through the band's MySpace page. It premiered everywhere else on television May 5, 2009.

The video takes place in one only sequence, featuring singer and pianist Isaac Slade walking through a destroyed suburban street after some sort of accident or attack. While Isaac walks through the street, people run and police officers and soldiers try to save others in the ruins. The video ends with Isaac finding a woman (played by Jaime King) who was obviously looking for him. The video ends with the two and everyone else in the neighborhood looking to the distant Los Angeles cityscape before it completely explodes. The set used in the aftermath of the plane crash scene from Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds was also used to film this clip, located at Universal Studios in Hollywood.[9]

The song was featured on One Tree Hill, The Vampire Diaries, Ghost Whisperer, So You Think You Can Dance, CSI: Miami and Brothers & Sisters. The song was also chosen for the soundtrack of films Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and After. It also appeared in the film trailer for Brothers.

Glee covered the song in their season four premiere episode "The New Rachel" by Jake Puckerman (Jacob Artist).

Christina Grimmie covered the song on her YouTube account (zeldaxlove64 Christina Grimmie) on August 18, 2009.

Evan Boerstra covered the song on his SoundCloud account (evan-boerstra) and YouTube account (Evan Boerstra) on September 4, 2020.

After a slow climb over several weeks, "Never Say Never" finally made its way up to #48 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Following its inclusion in the soundtrack release of the film Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the song climbed over to its peak position of #32. The song spent 20 weeks on the chart. The song peaked at #7 on the Adult Pop Songs chart. On the Canadian Hot 100, the song peaked at #51, and on the ARIA Charts, the song peaked at #38.[10]