Good Things Go

"Good Things Go"
Song by Linkin Park
from the album From Zero
Format:	Digital
Length:	3:29
Writer:	Linkin Park, Jake Torrey
Producer:	Mike Shinoda, Colin Brittain, Brad Delson
Label:	Warner Records
From Zero tracklist
From Zero (Intro) The Emptiness Machine Cut The Bridge Heavy Is The Crown Over Each Other Casualty Overflow Two Faced Stained IGYEIH Good Things Go

"Good Things Go" is the eleventh track from Linkin Park's eighth studio album, From Zero.

Background

The known existence of the phrase "Good Things Go" for fans dates back to when Mike was streaming during the COVID-19 pandemic on Twitch. On the November 13, 2020 stream, the title of "Good Things Go" was first seen in three files on Mike's computer as he was browsing. A month later on December 15, more files relating to the song appeared, with file names like "Good Things Go 2.2 Kennedy", "Good Things Go 2.2 Dia", "Good Things Go 2.2 Lily", "GTG MS temp vocal", etc. It is possible these were other vocalists Mike was writing with. Mike eventually caught on, either by seeing tweets or reading Linkinpedia's page for the Twitch streams that he referenced several times over the years, and trolled fans by naming his folders on his desktop "YES I KNOW", "YOU CAN SEE MY FOLDERS", "STOP PEEKING".

About the song name and the aforementioned demo titles, Mike said, "I love that phrase and I've tried it out a few different times in different demos for years, I had that phrase and I knew it was going to be a good song, but I didn't know if its going to be the chorus, a line in the chorus, or what. It found its home in this one... It was the band and Jake Torrey when we were -- Jake Torrey has been in and out of the studio with the band for a few years, I met him when I met Colin -- I told him and the band the line and they were like, 'that's the song.' The way we all kind of riffed how it crescendos up with Emily's voice, it felt so emotional."

Mike was asked several times if the song was influenced by the loss of Chester Bennington. He said, "It's not about one thing... because there was a group of people in the room, everybody was pulling from different personal memories, so the song concept got kind of spread out between all of these different stories. Everybody kind of related to it in a different way and was suggesting different lyrics and things, and I kind of just synthesized all of that into words. The bridge of the song has a long triplet rap part, I think I did that maybe in 2019, I had wrote that? I pulled it up from my phone and tried it out over the bridge and it worked so well. That song went on quite a journey to get where it ended up."

"Good Things Go" became an instant fan-favorite on the new album upon its release. Mike commented, "Lots of people saying Good Things Go is a favorite on the album. Love that, I didn't expect it. I really like this song." He said that "it's really a relationship song, about a few of our stories combined together" and "I think the majority of the words were me, Colin, and Jake Torrey? But the whole band worked on the song, as usual."

Mike said he loves the back-and-forth vocals on the track.

Songwriter Jake Torrey wrote the song with Linkin Park. Upon the album's release, he commented, "New @linkinpark album From Zero out now, got to work on Overflow and Good Things Go. Hybrid Theory was the first album I ever owned on cassette and being a part of this album is a crazy full circle experience. Thanks @m_shinoda for giving me the call." Mike replied, "We always love seeing you, Jake. working with you is a bonus"

The end of "IGYEIH" features a sample of what sounds like a droning sound that segues into "Good Things Go." About the transition, Mike said, "One thing you'll notice on this album is that there isn't any wasted space. All of the transitions from one to another are very snappy and short, and they really, for the most part, just fly right into the next thing with chaotic little... all of the transitional pieces that are not actually in the song are chopped up into bits and gritted out into the song in a way where they almost trip and fall into the next song. The exceptions are going into 'Overflow,' which is in the middle of the record, and going into 'Good Things Go,' which is at the end of the record. Those are the two because you need at those moments, something to almost like hit the ground and stop the pace."

The very end of the album, the end of "Good Things Go", loops back to the intro track with the same choral part from Mike and Emily, as described by Mike, "When I wrote that outro, that very last swell you hear, it goes back into the choral... tons and tons of me and Emily singing this choir thing... the end of the record swells up, and if you play the album in loop, then it goes right back to the first sound you hear on the record. So it just loops on itself, which is a circle, which is a zero. The whole idea being that, not just the album can do that, but like, that's life. These cycles happen, and the experiences within the cycle might be the same they, they might be different. There's something to us, we feel like we're at the beginning of a new loop around."

Versions

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

Studio

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Good Things Go	From Zero	3:29		November 15, 2024	Includes transition to "From Zero (Intro)".

Live

"Good Things Go" has not been performed live by Linkin Park.

Personnel

Linkin Park is

• Mike Shinoda
• Brad Delson
• Dave "Phoenix" Farrell
• Joseph Hahn
• Emily Armstrong
• Colin Brittain

Production

• Written by Linkin Park, Jake Torrey
• Produced by Mike Shinoda
• Co-Produced by Brad Delson, Colin Brittain
• Additional Production by Matias Mora
• Recording Engineering by Mike Shinoda, Ethan Mates
• Vocals by Mike Shinoda, Emily Armstrong
• Guitar by Brad Delson
• Bass by Dave "Phoenix" Farrell
• Programming by Joseph Hahn
• Drums by Colin Brittain
• Mixed by Neal Avron
• Assistant Engineering by Scott Skrzynski
• Mastered by Emerson Mancini

Lyrics

Album Version

Feels like it's rained in my head for a hundred days
Stare in the mirror and I look for another face
And I get so tired of putting out fires and making up lies
Checking my eyes for some kinda light, but
Nothing's inside and it
Feels like it's rained in my head for a hundred days

And I
Say I hate you when I don't
Push you when you get too close
It's hard to laugh
When I'm the joke
But I can't do this on my
Only you can save me from my
Lack of self-control
Sometimes bad things take the place where good things go

I've asked for forgiveness a hundred times
Believed it myself when I halfway apologized
And it's not unfair I'm asking for prayers but
Nobody cares
Going nowhere like falling downstairs
While everyone stares
No one's there when I've asked for forgiveness a hundred times

And I
Say I hate you when I don't
Push you when you get too close
It's hard to laugh
When I'm the joke
But I can't do this on my
Only you can save me from my
Lack of self-control
Sometimes bad things take the place where good things go

No, I'm just taking a shot / ah
Maybe I'm just too eager / oh
Maybe I lost the plot / ha
I used to pity some people / I
Said they were missing a spine / yeah
Maybe the problem is ego / Maybe the
Maybe the problem is mine / Really I'm fine
Don't get too intimate, don't get too curious
This is just feeling like it's not that serious
Stare at the ceiling / Feeling delirious
Fuck all your empathy I want your fury 'cause I will just
Tell you I'm better then / Better then
Spit out my medicine / Medicine, ay
Drunk on adrenaline / -drenaline, ay
And I don't know why I

Say I hate you when I don't
Push you when you get too close
It's hard to laugh
When I'm the joke
But I can't do this on my
Only you can save me from my lack of self-control
And I won't make excuses for the pain I caused us both
So thank you for always standing by me even though
Sometimes bad things take the place where good things go