Songfacts®:

• Linkin Park's Chester Bennington told MTV News that this is one of his favorite tracks on A Thousand Suns. He said: "I think that 'Waiting for the End' and 'Iridescent' are probably tied at #1 [for my] favorite song on the record. I just think they're really beautiful." He added: "I like the summertime vibe of 'Waiting,' and I like the lyrical content of it all, and the dynamic, too."
• Bennington told Reuters that unlike other songs on A Thousand Suns this one is "uplifting right off the bat." He explained: "The punchline of the song is 'I'm holding on to what I haven't got,' and I think that everybody can relate to that. I believe that people have this idea of what they want their life to be like and they strive to achieve that idea as much as possible."
  
  Bennington added that the chorus, which goes, "I know what it takes to move on/I know how it feels to lie/all I wanna do is trade this life for something new/I'm holding on to what I haven't got" was "very vulnerable, very down to earth, very human."
  
  "The song doesn't get into 'poor me'" he said. "It just says, 'This happened. I'm not gonna focus on (what) got me here. I know what I want. That's what I'm holding on to."
• Director Joe Hahn described his vision for the digital effects-laden music video: "The clip is an experiment in making the most digital version of ourselves in the spirit of the visual palette of A Thousand Suns. If you have been following our visuals throughout this album, this is the next step in our journey. I wanted to push ourselves so far down the digital path that it eventually felt spiritual. As we live our lives in the digital noise of today, we can find our center of humanity in the midst of the chaos. This is my illustration of that."
  
  According to VH1's Pop-Up Video, the "bullet time" moves weren't created by special effects, but by the band members holding poses. Hahn told them to pretend they were practicing Tai Chi. To achieve the rotating shots, he had each guy stand on a turntable.
• This is the second single from the band's fourth studio album, which explores fears such as the threat of nuclear warfare. The title is taken from physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer's description of the atomic bomb as being "as bright as a thousand suns" in 1945 (which in turn references a line from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita). In the album's liner notes, the band explained the significance of the quote and how it influenced the apocalyptic concept:
  
  "Oppenheimer's words resonate today not only for their historical significance, but for their emotional gravity. So, too, A Thousand Suns grapples with the personal cycle of pride, destruction, and regret. In life, like in dreams, this sequence is not always linear. And, sometimes, true remorse penetrates the devastating cycle. The hope, of course, springs from the notion that the possibility of change is born in our most harrowing moments."
• This was used on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in the 2010 episode "Sqweegel."
• Linkin Park performed this on the February 5, 2011 episode of Saturday Night Live.