The song that the Linkin Park will no longer play without Chester

Together with Emily Armstrong, the singer enlisted last year to set the group on motorbike after seven years and bring it back to the stages and record scenes, the Linkin Park tried to start again from scratch, to mention the title of the album released in autumn, “from Zero”. But Mike Shinoda and members know very well that the past cannot be erased, and they absolutely don’t want to do it. In an interview granted to the Guardian in the middle of the European tour linked to “From Zero”, which also passed in Italy at the end of June for a single date that at the Hippodrome La Maura in Milan gathered about 80 thousand fans, Shinoda has made it known that there is a song that the gathered Linkin Park will no longer play. It is a song that binds in one way or another to Chester Bennington, the former singer of the group, who died suicide in 2017.

The song in question is the one that gave the title to the latest album engraved by Linkin Park together with Bennington himself, “One More Light”. The album came out on May 19, 2017, exactly two months before Bennington’s disappearance, whose body was found lifeless in his residence in Palos Verde Summer, in California, on July 20, 2017. Here is what Shinoda said:

“(Initially it had been written) for a woman of the label we worked with, who disappeared. Then, after Chester’s disappearance, the world decided that the song spoke of him. And therefore it is too sad to be played.

“One More Light” was extracted as a single from the album of the same name on September 19, two months after Bennington’s death, from popular acclamation: “It was written with the intention of sending love to those who lost someone,” Mike Shinoda said at the time. “Should’ve Stayed / Were There Signs I Ignored / Can I Help you not to Hurt Anymore?” Sing Bennington in the emblematic verses, of the lyrics of the song, “I would have had to stay / were there signs that I ignored / can I help you not suffer anymore?”.

A touching video clip was also published in the song, made by putting together archive films starring Chester Bennington: eight years after its release, the clip has 315 million views today.