This Linkin Park Song May Feature Chester Bennington’s Most Emotional Vocal Performance

Linkin Park emerged from California in 2000 with a colossal debut, Hybrid Theory. The album, and its follow-up, Meteora, launched rap-rock into a commercial stratosphere typically reached only by pop megastars.

Led by Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda, hits like “In The End”, “Somewhere I Belong”, and “Numb” are propelled by Bennington’s angsty hooks and Shinoda’s monotone rapping. A kind of beauty-and-the-beast formula that, while not novel, transformed both hard rock and pop music in the early 2000s.

The influence of Linkin Park can be heard in Billie Eilish and The Chainsmokers, among many others. But there’s a track in Linkin Park’s catalog that departs from their signature style and may feature one of Bennington’s most emotional performances.

“Shadow Of The Day” appears on the band’s third studio album, Minutes To Midnight (2007), a reference to the Doomsday Clock that eerily echoes Bennington’s life.

Solutions Aren’t So Simple

Bennington is known for his melodic, bloodcurdling screams. But “Shadow Of The Day” finds him in the restrained singing voice of someone clearly suffering.

I close both locks below the window,
I close both blinds and turn away.
Sometimes solutions aren’t so simple,
Sometimes goodbye’s the only way, oh.

The hook reminds me of “747” by the Swedish alternative rock band Kent, which, like Linkin Park’s ballad, shares DNA with U2’s perfect hymn, “With Or Without You”.

And the sun will set for you,
The sun will set for you.
And the shadow of the day,
Will embrace the world in gray.
And the sun will set for you.

Goodbye’s the Only Way

Using a metaphor for the gloom that hangs over each day, Bennington grapples with mortality and letting go of a loved one.

In cards and flowers on your window,
Your friends all plead for you to stay.
Sometimes beginnings aren’t so simple,
Sometimes goodbye’s the only way, oh.

He co-wrote the song with Shinoda. Though it’s not the band’s heaviest or most popular track, in hindsight, it’s difficult not to listen to Bennington’s performance here without acknowledging his own personal struggles.

In 2017, Bennington took his own life. He was 41.

Photo by Junko Kimura/Getty Images