Leave Out All the Rest

"Leave Out All the Rest"
Song

"Leave Out All the Rest" is the third track and the fifth single off of Linkin Park's third studio album, Minutes to Midnight. Even before the song was confirmed as an official single, due to radioplay, the song had achieved a U.S. chart position.

Background information

The song's working titles were "Fear" and "When My Time Comes" according to the booklet. While writing, the group went through over thirty lyrical variations before completing the album version.

The song starts with a string sample and electric piano intro, followed by the verse. Its lyrics speak of someone who's made some poor choices in the past and wronged others and he fears oblivion. The song is a sort of confession (possibly to a friend or loved one) and an attempt at redemption. The lyrics also mention the differences between two individuals that shouldn't matter. The person wants to be remembered as a good person in other peoples memory when he dies.

The song combines various synths and samples with raw guitars and drums and powerful vocals. It is a more pop rock influenced ballad that retains several elements from LP's previous work (bearing certain similarities to songs like "Easier to Run" & "Pushing Me Away").

The intro to the song was featured on an English advert for the U.S. television series Law & Order for Sky One.

"Leave Out All the Rest" was one of the names considered for the title of the album along with "In Triumph & Tragedy", "Triumph in Tragedy", "In Cold Blood", "Linkin Park", "All the Rest", "Almanac", "Dictionary", "Argue. Agree", "Ascend", as well as others, according to the Minutes to Midnight DVD.

Possibility as a single

In a Kerrang review/interview of the band, and the album, vocalist Chester Bennington had this say about "Leave Out All the Rest", "We knew this was going to be a single from the very beginning, so we worked really hard on making sure it had great lyrics. I'm singing 'Pretending someone else can save me from myself' during it because it's supposed to feel like an apology letter, as though I'm moving on but I want people to remember the good things and not the bad things. A lot of the song is about humility." Mike Shinoda has also stated that Rick Rubin ( Producer for Minutes to Midnight) said "This sounds like a massive single" and according to Shinoda, was the first to realize the song's potential as a single.

According to an interview with Mike Shinoda by MTV, "Leave Out All the Rest" will be the next single. A release date is not mentioned, but it could possibly be a while, since the band has only recently released "Given Up" as the fourth single.

Music video

In an interview with MTV, Mike said that the video, directed by bandmate Joe Hahn, will take place in a futuristic, sci-fi influenced setting, and will depict what the daily life of the band's members would be like if they lived in outer space. The band lives in a rundown, artificial habitat that's making its way across the galaxy. At first, they are seen passing the time performing mundane tasks, but then gravity is lost onboard the vessel, sending the members floating about. The video will feature no performance footage.

"We're explorers in space, just like when we go on tour", said Joe. "We're leaving our home life behind, and I guess it kind of ties into 'Leave Out All the Rest', in that we have to leave things behind in order to do something better."

Chart performance

The song managed to spend one week on the Billboard Pop 100 without being officially released as a single, at number 98.