Nobody Can Save Me

"Nobody Can Save Me" is the first track on One More Light. The song is described as a glitch, representing (as the album opener) a rebirth in the band's career. The band feels that "Nobody Can Save Me" is one of the foundational songs of the album, starting an emotional arc.

Background

On January 14, 2016, Gabriela Velichkova, a Southampton Solent University student, posted a picture of her with Jon Green on Twitter with the caption "Just met Jon Green! Working on new stuff with @linkinpark at the moment. Can't wait to hear the final project! ^_^"

Jon Green is the singer of the English band The Bonfires. Both bands were at the Larrabee Studios in November 2015. While two songs with Jon made One More Light, "Nobody Can Save Me" and "Battle Symphony", Linkin Park worked with Jon on at least two more songs - "Friendly Fire", released in 2024, and "Tidal Wave", which is unreleased. Mike Shinoda went on to say Jon Green really related well with Chester.

On February 24, 2016, a live feed from the studio was made through Linkin Park's official Facebook page showing Brad Delson, Jon Green, and Mike Shinoda working on lyrics for a new song.

On April 7, 2016, Ethan Mates posted a picture of his computer on Facebook showing a folder called "LP Album 7 Main". Inside the folder, there was a file named "Nobody Can Save Me J Green 2". The image was apparently posted by mistake, because it was immediately removed. On the 28th of that month, Joe Hahn posted on his Instagram account a picture of Jon Green with a songboard behind him, indicating he was back at Linkin Park's studio. The picture was immediately removed from his account and The Bonfires later uploaded a blurred version of the picture to their account.

During the One More Light Global Album Listening Party on May 19, 2017, Mike and Brad explained that when putting the album's tracklisting together, they go through several different iterations of what order to put the songs in. They mentioned Joe specifically liked the final order of the album, with "Nobody Can Save Me" as the first song. Mike said, "This is a song that builds into more of a rock song. By the end of it, you can hear all of the live instruments and I felt like having that full evolution in one song was important, on the first track. I remember the first time I put it in this order, I went, "Oh, the first line on the album was "I'm dancing with my demons", it's like that's a really important part of what the album is about." Brad added, "It sets up an emotional arc and I also love that this is one of the songs that I worked on with Jon Green. This song isn't a curve ball on the album, this song feels like one of the foundational songs. It possesses the heart of the album among a few others. Of the songs that we released before, and we talked about this and considered releasing this one, we didn't put this one out early so the album would start with something new."

Before playing the song live in Kraków on June 15, 2017, Mike said, "So we have a new album out, it is called One More Light. And as we are making an album, there are always certain songs that stand out to each of us and to help define the course of the record. And to me, this was always one song, that I felt like, that I really wanted to save and I didn't want people to hear until they heard the whole album. And that's why we put it first on the record. This is actually, this is only the second time we've ever played it too. So you guys get a.. you're the second crowd, so.... this one is called Nobody Can Save Me."

According to him, the song took a long time to finish. "Dude. I mean there are certain songs that are almost, like, notorious in our catalogue for having so many versions. Somewhere I Belong, Bleed It Out, actually Nobody Can Save Me was one. The song itself, like the words, melody, and chords came very easily. But the track, it took so much to get it right."

Before One More Light was released, Mike Shinoda gave Waves a song-by-song glimpse into the album's production and mixing. For "Nobody Can Save Me", he said, "That’s one of my favorite sounds on the album. It was one of our scratch vocal tracks which we cut up and made the melody out of. There’s some basic low-pass filtering here with the Waves Linear Phase EQ, a little distortion, and a reverb with very short decay time. The filter is opened up in different sections, to make those sections feel bigger."

Versions

Note: Only the date of the very first release of each version is listed.

Studio

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Nobody Can Save Me	One More Light	3:45	2016	May 19, 2017
Nobody Can Save Me	One More Light Instrumentals	3:46	2016		Official instrumental version.

Live

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Nobody Can Save Me	One More Light Live	3:59	June 15, 2017 July 4, 2017	December 15, 2017	Speech before the song recorded in Kraków on June 15, 2017. Parts of the song recorded both at the same show and in London on July 4, 2017. Part of Chester's lyrical mistake during the last chorus of the London show was edited out and replaced with a line from the same chorus from the Kraków show.

Live

While rehearsing for the One More Light European Tour, Mike Shinoda posted a photo on Instagram with the caption "Playing and singing a new one. This one is kinda challenging; I didn't play and sing the parts at the same time in the studio. Have to practice it over and over until muscle memory takes over ha" Fans first thought the song was Sorry For Now, but he later replied to the comments saying "It's not Sorry For Now." The song later wound up being "Nobody Can Save Me".

"Nobody Can Save Me" got its live debut at the Berlin stop on the One More Light European Tour, replacing "Battle Symphony". The two songs would rotate every show that the full setlist was played. At the band's special "One More Night in London" show, Jon Green, who helped writing the song, came out to play guitar on the song. At the show dedicated to the late Chester Bennington, "Nobody Can Save Me" was played with both Jon Green and Steven McKellar from Civil Twilight. This performance also had an extended intro with Green playing guitar and Green, McKellar, and Mike Shinoda singing the chorus of the song. This version was also played a half step lower than the album version.

When he was on tour for "Post Traumatic", Mike said about playing certain songs in his solo set, "I can sing "Nobody Can Save Me" and "Battle Symphony" from the new Linkin Park record, and I can sing them because I wrote them, it was me and my friend Jon Green. And I sang the demos and they're written in a way that I can sing those pretty well. But lyrically, a little too hard. I just feel like I know that in the long run, if I put that in the set, it's only going to be a show or two before I go, "I don't want to sing that. I don't want to sing those words." So it's a work in progress. And it's also knowing myself as I go." In 2019, Mike ended up performing "Battle Symphony" and "Nobody Can Save Me" with Jon Green, who helped write the songs, once in London. Despite saying earlier in the cycle that "Nobody Can Save Me" was among the songs he struggled to play because of its emotional weight, it became a semi-regular addition to the set following this performance.

Variations

Last Updated: October 29, 2017

Type	Description	First Played	Last Played
Intro	Chorus Sung Over Guitar Melody	October 27, 2017	October 27, 2017
Alternative	Half Step Down	October 27, 2017	October 27, 2017

Live Guests

Linkin Park

Last Updated: October 29, 2017

• Jon Green (The Bonfires)
• Steven McKellar (Civil Twilight)

Mike Shinoda

Last Updated: April 28, 2020

• Jon Green (The Bonfires)

Personnel

Linkin Park

• Chester Bennington - Vocals
• Rob Bourdon - Drums, Background Vocals
• Brad Delson - Guitar, Background Vocals
• Joseph Hahn - Programming, Background Vocals
• Phoenix - Bass, Background Vocals
• Mike Shinoda - Keyboards, Programming, Vocals

Additional Musicians

• Additional guitar, background vocals and bass by Jon Green

Production

• Written by Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson and Jon Green
• Produced by Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson
• Addtional production by Jon Green
• Vocal production by Andrew Bolooki
• Music performed by Linkin Park
• Vocals by Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda
• Chester's vocals recorded at The Pool Recording Studio, London, UK
• Mike's vocals recorded at The Warehouse Studio, Vancouver, CA
• Music recorded at Larrabee Studios, North Hollywood, CA and Sphere Studios, North Hollywood, CA
• Engineered by Ethan Mates, Mike Shinoda and Josh Newell
• Assistant engineer: Alejandro Baima
• Studio B assistant engineer: Warren Willis
• Studio drum tech: Jerry Johnson
• Mixed by Serban Ghenea at Mixstar Studios, Virginia Beach, VA
• Engineered for mix by John Hanes

Lyrics

Album Version

I'm dancing with my demons
I'm hanging off the edge
Storm clouds gather beneath me
Waves break above my head

Head-first hallucination
I wanna fall wide awake now

You tell me it's alright
Tell me I'm forgiven, tonight
But nobody can save me now
I'm holding up a light
Chasing out the darkness inside
'Cause nobody can save me

Stared into this illusion
For answers yet to come
I chose a false solution
But nobody proved me wrong

Head-first hallucination
I wanna fall wide awake
Watch the ground giving way now

You tell me it's alright
Tell me I'm forgiven, tonight
But nobody can save me now
I'm holding up a light
Chasing out the darkness inside
'Cause nobody can save me

Been searching somewhere out there
For what's been missing right here
(I wanna fall wide awake now)
I've been searching somewhere out there
For what's been missing right here

I wanna fall wide awake now

So tell me it's alright
Tell me I'm forgiven tonight
And only I can save me now
I'm holding up a light
Chasing out the darkness inside
And I don't wanna let you down
But only I can save me

Been searching somewhere out there
For what's been missing right here

Gallery

• 

  YouTube background image

• 

  Linkin Park in the studio with Justin Parker and Jon Green

• 

  One More Light folder on Ethan Mates' computer

• 

  Jon Green in Linkin Park's studio. Photo by Joe Hahn

External Links

Stream

• Nobody Can Save Me (Official Audio): LPTV

LPTV

• This Is Fun: LPTV | LP FB