[Long post alert, but it’s worth it]
If you’ve been a reader of my blog since I started it in 2008 (unlikely), you’ll have picked up that my proclivity towards retaining and finding meaning pop culture is second to none. I guess I must thank my parents to give me access to all that, and secondly to also help build the right type of curiosity that is able to extract deep meaning from the banality of pop culture, movies, music, anime etc.
There are several things that have inspired me over my life and the most important one has been the music of early 2000s rock band Linkin Park. Read about their history and what drove their fame on Wikipedia so I don’t have to repeat the facts.
What I want to dive into are specific songs and the meaning and philosophy behind them. Overall, Linkin Park’s music was extremely human, not preachy, not dreamy, but as real as it could be. The songs meet you in the moment of where you are, and majority of the themes are around mental health – depression, trauma, anger, sadness – all the emotions that truly define humans. This is also why their music has always appealed to me, and appeals to me even more today at 37 than it did when I was 17. As a teenager, I appreciated Chester’s screaming, the heavy guitar and angry music, but now as a fully grown man, I appreciate the meaning behind every song. And I love the new lead Emily Armstrong as well!
I’m gonna go through quite a few songs that provide that depth of human experience to the listener. These are also songs I remember by heart, and they’re capable of moistening the tear glands of this brute with quite some ease.
Read on and drop in a comment in case any of these songs appealed to you, and especially if they appealed differently to you.
Table of Contents
Inner pain
Crawling, Papercut and Heavy – these ones describe different forms of internal stress, whether it’s about self-judgement, past trauma, inner criticism, and just not having that feeling of control that we all crave.
Crawling
This lack of self-control, I fear is never-ending
…
Discomfort, endlessly has pulled itself upon me
…
Against my will, I stand beside my own reflection
…
These wounds, they will not heal
Fear is how I fall
Confusing, confusing what is real
One of the most recognizable openings to any song (LP has a ton of those), but this song hits you hard if you’ve ever had anything from your past that you know is always there, always affecting you, but you also have no way to do anything about it. That’s the “lack of self-control”, that’s the “against my will”, that’s the “confusing what is real” – these thoughts and feelings crawling under your skin whether you like it or not.
Crawling Lyrics | Krwling Reanimation (best version of the song)
Papercut
Like a face that I hold inside
A face that awakes when I close my eyes
A face that watches every time I lie
A face that laughs every time I fall
(And watches everything)
…
I know I’ve got a face in me
Points out all my mistakes to me
You’ve got a face on the inside too
Your paranoia’s probably worse
This song is close to my heart because it was the song that saved me from hazing / ragging in my freshman / first year of undergrad back in 2006. I didn’t attend a great school and it was in a not so prestigious location, with a ton of brash & rowdy seniors who took a lot of enjoyment in humiliating a freshman. They’d give out unrealistic challenges and if you’re not able to do it, then you gotta do questionable stuff for them. Mine was to sing Papercut, and of course I did. Yes, I can rap. It blew their minds, saved my ass, made me some new friends, and then they asked me to haze the other freshmen. I’ll stop the story right here.
This song though is about that self-criticism hiding beneath your skin, that voice that always second guesses you, the feelings of insecurity, the fear of failure or being paranoid about failure, watching everything you say. You know if you know it. It’s a hard hitting song.
Heavy
I don’t like my mind right now
Stacking up problems that are so unnecessary
Wish that I could slow things down
I wanna let go but there’s comfort in the panic
And I drive myself crazy
Thinking everything’s about me
…
I keep dragging around what’s bringing me down
If I just let go, I’d be set free
The opening of this song hits you instantly! “I don’t like my mind right now” .. yeah you know when the mind is in a weird place. On one hand, the song takes you through the pain this person is feeling and again that lack of self-control about being able to do anything about it. But on the other hand, it kinda shows you exceptional self-awareness that you’re able to see what’s happening in your mind, and if you just let go of whatever you’re dragging around, you’ll be set free. It’s a sad but also a hopeful song at the same time.
Forced expectations and anger
Numb, A Place for my Head and One Step Closer – some of the angrier songs by LP especially the latter two. It’s understandable, because these are about the expectations put upon you that you’re not able to fulfill, and it leads to overwhelm, pain and anger.
Numb
I’m tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface
I don’t know what you’re expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
…
I’m becoming this, all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you
…
And I know
I may end up failing too
But I know
You were just like me with someone disappointed in you
Between “In the end” and “Numb”, these are probably the MJ and LeBron of LP’s song portfolio. Numb again opens with an absolute hard-hitting line “I’m tired of being what you want me to be”, and you’re instantly drawn into the song, connected through that shared feeling of just not being able to be whoever you’re supposed to be. This is another remarkably self-aware song, not just one about frustration, but you can see the shift when you hear “I want to be more like me, and be less like you”, and especially the ending “But I know, you were just like me with someone disappointed in you”. LP shows the pain and anger, but also shows what the person really wants (to be more like themselves), and also compassion for this other person who might also be a victim of this endless cycle of failing to meet expectations.
A Place for My Head
I watch how the moon sits in the sky in the dark night
Shining with the light from the sun
And the sun doesn’t give light to the moon assuming
The moon’s gonna owe it one
…
You try to take the best of me, go away
You try to take the best of me, go away
(angry Chester screams)
This song is actually quite similar to Numb, but much much much angrier. This is also my fav song to rap along with – thanks to the GOAT Mike Shinoda. Another banger of an opener with the Sun & Moon metaphor of how the Sun is not giving the light to moon assuming it’s doing it a favor for something back in return. But for us humans, with our complex relationships with our loved ones, parents etc. this conditional love is far too common. And when the burden of expectations becomes too great, you will eventually want the other person to “go away”.
LP did a live concert in Texas (Dallas) in the early 2000s. It’s probably the greatest rock concert of all time, but I’d especially recommend watching A Place for My Head from that. You just need to hear Chester to feel what the song is trying to communicate.
One Step Closer
I cannot take this anymore
Saying everything I’ve said before
…
Everything you say to me
Takes me one step closer to the edge
And I’m about to break
…
Shut up when I’m talking to you
Shut up, shut up, shut up
The angriest one of them all. One Step Closer warns you from the opening line “I cannot take this anymore”, with anger and with fire, that if you come closer then someone will just get burned. It’s when you’ve either tried explaining yourself and it doesn’t work, or if you keep hearing words that don’t get through to you, or don’t understand. This song takes you to the point of breaking, and if you know about Chester’s background, he was probably there every time he was singing this song.
Loss, futility, remembrance
In The End, With You, My December, One More Light – sadness, loss, futility, remembrance. Also my absolute favorite sing-along tracks.
In the End
One thing, I don’t know why
It doesn’t even matter how hard you try
…
I kept everything inside
And even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be
A memory of a time when I tried so hard
…
I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end, it doesn’t even matter
Probably the greatest and most recognizable LP song ever. Another super hard-hitter for someone like me. It hits especially hard for ambitious people who think that if you put in the effort, you’re entitled to the results. Life doesn’t work that way, and there are no guarantees. You keep trying and trying to force the outcomes you want, you try and you fail, and then you remember those times. The reanimation version’s lyrics then point out the reflective part of the song:
But in the end, no matter what I pretend
The journey is more important than the end or the start
With You
I woke up in a dream today, to the cold of the static
And put my cold feet on the floor
…
Even though you’re so close to me, you’re still so distant
And I can’t bring you back
…
I’m with you (You, now I see, keepin’ everything inside)
With you (You, now I see, even when I close my eyes)
Another banger, very nostalgic for me, especially reminds of the DragonBallZ AMVs that used to circulate around during the good days of the Internet. If this was a part of your childhood as well, then high five!
The chorus is the core of the song, where the song says I’m with you, but I’m still keeping everything inside. You’re so distant even though you’re close to me. Maybe the worst form of isolation and detachment where you’re not able to connect with the person near you.
My December
(And I) Just wish that I didn’t feel like there was somethin’ I missed
(And I) Take back all the things I said to make you feel like that
(And I) Just wish that I didn’t feel like there was somethin’ I missed
(And I) Take back all the things that I said to you
…
And I’d give it all away
Just to have somewhere to go to
Give it all away
To have someone to come home to
The song that meets you when you’re frozen, alone and hoping for someone to share this time with. It’s a lesser known LP song, it’s very slow, no anger, no rock elements, just sadness. It’s a song about longing, maybe about past regrets, about things you want to take back, but alas you’re just there by yourself. It’s a beautiful song.
One More Light
If they say
Who cares if one more light goes out?
In the sky of a million stars
It flickers, flickers
Who cares when someone’s time runs out?
If a moment is all we are
Or quicker, quicker
Who cares if one more light goes out?
Well, I do
I end up crying a river every time I listen to this one. This song is dedicated to Chester’s memory in the music video below. But if you just listen to the words, they pierce through you like a hot knife on butter. It’s a song that gives you extreme hope and extreme sadness at the same time. For anyone who’s thought about ending it all, thinking that it doesn’t matter if just one light out of millions & billions goes out then it doesn’t make a difference, well Chester says it makes a difference to him. And it’s ironic with utmost cruelty, that Chester ended his life soon after the release of this song.
Every life is precious, and your life is connected to so many other lives in ways you probably can’t even imagine. Just think about that.
Wanting to change, and to be someone else
Breaking the Habit, Somewhere I Belong, Iridescent, Waiting for the End – absolute tear jerkers. You know it if you know it.
Breaking the Habit
You all assume I’m safe here in my room
Unless I try to start again
…
Clutching my cure, I tightly lock the door
I try to catch my breath again
I hurt much more than anytime before
I had no options left again
…
I don’t know how I got this way, I’ll never be alright
So I’m breaking the habit
THE song about mental health, depression and addiction. And banger of a music video as well. WATCH the video! Highly recommend.
It describes the struggle of any type of addiction perfectly. The person knows very well they have a “problem”, they want to break out of that problem / habit, they say that to themselves every single time, and every single time they fail to break through. It’s like walking through endless purgatory, trying to escape hell on one side, and reaching for heaven on the other side. But you stay .. in the middle. In the clarity of what you need to do, but in the confusion of why it doesn’t work.
Somewhere I Belong
(When this began) I had nothin’ to say
And I’d get lost in the nothingness inside of me
(I was confused) And I let it all out to find
That I’m not the only person with these things in mind
(Inside of me) But all the vacancy the words revealed
Is the only real thing that I’ve got left to feel
(Nothing to lose) Just stuck, hollow, and alone
And the fault is my own, and the fault is my own
…
I wanna heal, I wanna feel
Like I’m close to something real
I wanna find something I’ve wanted all along
Somewhere I belong
Epic rap by Mike, and epic vocals by Chester, and an overall epic song in totality. Similar to breaking the habit, this is another song where the protagonist is stuck in an inner battle, criticizing themselves for not being able to belong in a certain place or just belong in this world altogether. They KNOW they are frozen, hurt, and they long for healing, feeling and belonging. How do you escape this battle unscathed? You probably don’t, you’ll have battle scars, and you may also lose your past self, but you’ll find a way out towards somewhere you belong.
Iridescent
When you were standing in the wake of devastation
When you were waiting on the edge of the unknown
And with the cataclysm raining down, insides crying, “Save me now”
You were there, impossibly alone
…
Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?
You build up hope, but failure’s all you’ve known
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go, let it go
A lesser known song from an incredible album from the later years of the Chester LP era. It’s a song about when you’re in that dark place, maybe during grief or a period of intense loss, or holding on to cumulative disappointments of the years, and you feel utterly lost, hopeless and alone. “And with the cataclysm raining down, insides crying, “Save me now”” — this hurts just to hear it, that a person is crying for help on the inside but still alone.
But Chester’s voice also gives you hope, a message to collect all that sadness & frustration, and throw it out the window, and just “Let it go”, and let things be how they are in that moment.
Waiting for the End
Waiting for the end to come
Wishing I had strength to stand
This is not what I had planned
It’s out of my control
Flying at the speed of light
Thoughts were spinning in my head
So many things were left unsaid
It’s hard to let you go
…
(Oh-oh-oh) I know what it takes to move on
(Oh-oh-oh) I know how it feels to lie
(Oh) All I wanna do is trade this life for something new
(Oh) Holding on to what I haven’t got
The darkest song of them all, and the hardest for me to listen to, makes me choke up and cry every single damn time. This one meets you when you’re in the seventh circle, in the depths of that infernal ocean, knocking on Lucifer’s door, waiting for the dark prince to open the gates and take you in. The line that hits me extremely hard – “All I wanna do is trade this life for something new”. If you try to really feel what the song is conveying, I don’t think it’s possible to come out on the other side without having a part of you melt up.
I recommend watching this recent live performance of the song by the new LP, with Emily Armstrong as the lead singer. I absolutely love her as the new lead after Chester. No comparisons. She is just really good and has the LP soul in her, and gives the band a brand new look. I hope I can attend a live concert some day! But in this video, you can see how Emily is also crying and choking up singing this song, I’ve seen it in many videos now. She probably has something to mourn for internally or externally while singing this one.
I guess that’s why Linkin Park still means so much to me after all these years. At 17, I loved the screaming, the heavy riffs, Mike’s rap, Chester’s voice, all the rage. At 37, I hear a completely different band. I hear the pain, loneliness, regret, hope, all the stuff I probably didn’t really understand back then, because I hadn’t experienced it myself.
The songs are still the same. I’m not.
Thanks for reading folks!