Lost

"Lost"
Single by Linkin Park
from the album Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition)
Working title:	Resolution
Recorded:	2002
Released:	February 10, 2023
Format:	Digital, CD
Length:	03:19
Writer:	Chester Bennington, Brad Delson, Rob Bourdon, Mike Shinoda, Dave Farrell, Joseph Hahn
Producer:	Linkin Park, Don Gilmore
Label:	Warner Records
Linkin Park singles chronology One More Light (2017) Lost (2023) Friendly Fire (2024)
Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition) tracklist
Lost Demos: Lost Fighting Myself More The Victim Massive Healing Foot A6 (Meteora 20 Demo) Cuidado (Lying From You Demo) Husky (Hit The Floor Demo) Interrogation (Easier To Run Demo) Faint (Meteora 20 Demo) Plaster 2 (Figure.09 Demo) Shifter (From The Inside Demo) Wesside Resolution

This article is about "Lost" from the Linkin Park album Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition). For "Lost" from the Linkin Park project LP Recharge - Wastelands, see LP Recharge - Wastelands.

"Lost" is a song from the Meteora recording sessions was officially released on February 10, 2023 as the first pre-release song from the 20th Anniversary Edition of Meteora.

Background

"Lost" is a song that became popular in the Linkin Park fan community when the DVD of their second album Meteora was released in 2003. On The Making Of Meteora DVD, fans noticed a demo that wasn't on the album which had vocals recorded for it. In this case, a five second clip of Chester singing "thoughts that take away my pride, trapped in places deep inside" over an instrumental has almost become legendary in the Linkin Park community and has appeared on fans' Linkin Park Underground CD wish lists for years. A lyric sheet of the song can also be seen on the DVD. The words were scribbled on the Meteora art wall at one point when Linkin Park, Delta, and Frank Maddocks were making it in summer 2002.

The song continued to make small appearances over time, but was never released in full until 2023. In 2007, the second LPTV series was released and the episode about the Summer Sanitarium 2003 Tour features an instrumental clip of the song. Additionally, another instrumental clip was shown in an episode of LPUTV for the Linkin Park Underground titled "Mike's Shirt" from 2007. Mike was asked about the song on Twitch on April 19, 2021 with the title "Thoughts That Take Away My Pride" but said because he didn't have a clip of it handy, "I don’t know that song. I mean, without hearing it, I don’t know. Chances are it was a demo of something that ended up on the album, uh, that we disassembled, but I don't know the actual answer."

With only around fifteen songs recorded for Meteora and a growing list of Meteora-era demos appearing on the LPU CDs, was a surprise that this song hadn't been released in some form until 2023. Until the release, its true title remained unknown and fans called it "Thoughts That Take Away My Pride" for twenty years due to the small clip of Chester in the DVD.

As far as the non-album songs for Meteora go, none were released from 2003 with vocals until "Lost." Rob said, "We had so many songs. We actually went into the studio with 18 songs that we recorded drums on." According to a studio report from Mike, in total, the band worked on 15 full songs for the album, which got whittled down to 13, with 12 of them making the final cut.

Chester added, "We recorded 15 tracks total and there's 12 on the record. We were trying to figure out which ones would work together. An album is a package. It's a collection of songs that should have a common tie and there were a few songs that kinda stuck out. It wasn't that they were bad in any way. I'm sure any band would love to have those songs on a record, they're really good songs, but they stuck out like a (sore) thumb. We kind of make sure that we really have a full package that you would want to listen to from beginning to end, without wanting to skip over anything."" The band, as usual, went with their strongest songs out of the batch - Rob added, "We wanted a group of songs that would sit well together because we wanted to make a record that you could pop into your CD player and, from beginning to end, there would never be a spot where you start daydreaming."

In a December 2002 update while recording the album, Mike said, "we also cut the number of songs down to thirteen, and we'll be cutting one more, i think." "Lost" was the final song cut for the album.

Mike said when looking for material for Meteora 20, "We were looking through the hard drives to see what we could include on that and we found this song "Lost." It was finished, it was ready to go on the album if it needed to be and we decided at the time not to include it. You've got to draw the line somewhere. If you've got however many songs, 20 something songs and your album is going to be 12, then there's a 13th. And "Lost" was the 13th song." He said in a different interview, "The only reason it did not make it onto the album is because it was too similar to "Numb"-like energy. We were like, "Yeah we've got one of those on the record, we don't need two of them", it'd have to take the spot of a different one." and added, "I think at the time, it was among two or three or maybe four songs that at the time we were considering doing something with." Mike said he didn't speak to Don Gilmore, the producer of the album, before releasing the song but he did want to speak to him.

Mike added that he forgot "Lost" existed and came across it when he was actually looking for a version he knew existed of "Fighting Myself" without Chester on it: "When we were looking for material for this thing, I wasn't looking for that song. In the process, I heard "Lost." We'd been writing Meteora and we had 40 demos or something, and you narrow down: "These ones don’t have any vocals yet. They’re not gonna be contenders. Get rid of them. These ones have vocals. They’re close. Keep working on them. These ones are keepers." Eventually, you get to the point where it's like, "Okay, we're gonna make an album of about 12 songs out of these." I remember that we did get to the point where we almost put "Lost" on Meteora. We realized that tonally, it was the same kind of emotion and energy as "Numb," and "Numb" was arguably a better song. We liked it better at the time. So we were like, "Well, we can't have two 'Numb's. We didn't know what we were going to do with it, so we just shelved it and forgot about it. Finding it was like, "Oh my God, the song got all the way to the finish line." Fans are gonna love to hear this. It was so fun to hear where we were at - what we were doing, what we were about, why people were showing up in the first place."

About the inspiration and meaning of the song, Mike said, "Well, "Lost" was like, "Lost" at the time, if I remember right, it was a long time ago, so I think the vibe on that, there's a vibe of, like, the inspiration for it was looking back on things that are, like, you get memories that you just sucked into. Right? And you get immersed in that nostalgia, or good feeling or bad feeling or whatever, in the case of this song, I think there was a bunch of not so good stuff, it's bittersweet, it's a mixed bag because there’s good stuff in there too, like, no things aren’t black and white or cut and dry and that’s the complex, that's what I like about the song, the lyrics of the song. But it's also a song that, it was this close to being on the record."

Upon the song's release, fans noticed that the "thoughts that take away my pride" lyric section was not in the song. When Mike, Dave, and Joe did a Discord Q&A on February 11, 2023 to celebrate the release of the song, the band initially was confused about the lyric question since it was just a fan-titled track and the band would naturally have no idea what that was referring to. Mike did some research during the Q&A and said, "You guys, I have some very exciting news for some of the hardcore, hardcore fans. I just found the clips that they were talking about, about the "thoughts that take away my pride" and it is indeed "Lost." It was a lyric that we were playing around with, and I think it was over the bridge. And yeah, just like trying it out over the bridge and he sang it, then he was like "Ah, I messed it up" and yelled. And then "Lost" was "thoughts that take away my pride." And that lyric got removed, it just wasn't as good as what we ended up with. So there we go, there's your answer... we have a resolution on it. This is one of the... in the fan base there are these certain songs and demos where they are like, "Where is this ONE? We know this existed, this is a mystery." And this is one of them, like "Pictureboard", this is one of the ones they've been focused on." Dave said, "Mike you just solved a mystery in real time." Mike added, "I didn't realize... I had never found the link they were talking about, like the specific clip and yeah, "Lost" is that song. Crazy."

Phoenix said that Linkin Park intended to release the extra songs from Meteora at some point. He said, "I vaguely remember after Hybrid Theory, we had a couple of different things that popped up that needed an extra track or something that was previously unreleased. There was a specialty album maybe for Japan and with that also we did "My December" for a KROQ release, and all this stuff. I remember thinking a little at Meteora, even if this song or a couple of songs, even if we don't put them on the album, there's always going to be spots where it's going to be awesome to use them. And then I think that we just never used it, we just pressed forward and it never circled back to that."

Resolution

"Resolution" is the fourteenth and final track on the Lost Demos disc. Although not explicitly stated in the tracklist, "Resolution" is an early demo of "Lost" as revealed by Brad Delson in his track-by-track commentary of the disc.

On "Lost", he wrote:

"Yes. This is like a familiar lost memory. Mike and Brad were in NYC with Andy Wallace. Thinking it would become a part of the final record, Andy mixed this song along with the others. At the last minute, we held it off, thinking, maybe there'll be a time we'll need one secret, special song. 20 years later. Welcome.

Chester's voice is like a revelation here... so delicate, so intimate, raw. And then he just takes off and soars, carrying us along for the ride. Thank you, Andy. And thank you Manny, for helping us hear it again for the very first time.

Play it again. Resolution."

On "Resolution", he wrote:

"The intro and outro piano figure definitely sets the stage. This version feels like it hearkens what's to come in the final version of the song, though clearly we're still early on in the process here. Love that beep beep in the verses - how loud it is; surprised that wasn't featured more prominently in the final. Love the backwards element in the pre-choruses. You can tell we were writing the track and crafting structure as an invitation for the rest of the vocals to arrive. Wow is that guitar low in the chorus. Love the ambience in the outro."

The Wizard Song

"The Wizard Song" was a joke song created during the Meteora sessions and shown in The Making Of Meteora documentary. Since then, many fans have wanted to hear a studio version of the song, however, Chester Bennington said during a LPU chat in April 2003, "No the wizard song will never ever ever be released because it doesnt exist."

Mike Shinoda also commented about the song on August 12, 2015, in a Reddit AMA, "That was from the DVD right? We do dumb crap like that all the time, and sometimes it gets captured on camera." He was questioned about the song again during a Twitch live stream on June 4, 2020, to which he answered, "I don't remember the LPTV Wizard Song. I know Chester sang like a crazy wizard thing. I don't think I could tell you anything about that, but I know it was hilarious so definitely go watch that one."

"The Wizard Song" shares its instrumental with "Resolution". The Work In Progress documentary features additional footage of "The Wizard Song" on which Chester can be seen recording his vocals over the chorus of "Resolution", right after Mike's rap verse.

Release

On January 27, 2023, Linkin Park began teasing the Meteora release on their social media and website, and a countdown was placed on their website to end on Wednesday, February 1, 2023.

On February 5, 2023, they posted a TikTok video with a tape recorder that Brad had found. When he played a few messages on it, it mentioned "Lost" and "Resolution." The first teaser clip of the song was posted the next day, on February 6.

Mike Shinoda said about the song, "Finding this track was like finding a favorite photo you had forgotten you'd taken, like it was waiting for the right moment to reveal itself. For years, fans have been asking us to release something with Chester's voice, and I'm thrilled we've been able to make that happen in such a special way. I think they're going to be floored when they hear and see all of the incredible unreleased songs and video footage in Meteora|20." Brad Delson said, "The performance is so beautiful, delicate and clear. I've heard a lot of great Chester vocals, and this is among the best."

Tracklist

Digital Single

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1	Lost	Linkin Park	3:19

Lost (PLZ Tethered Version)

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1	Lost (PLZ Tethered Version)	Linkin Park	3:22
2	Lost	Linkin Park	3:19

Music Video

The "Lost" music video was premiered at 9pm PST on February 10, 2023 on Linkin Park's YouTube page. The "Lost" press release said, "Produced and animated by pplpleasr and Maceij Kuciara's Web3 studio, Shibuya, the accompanying video re-envisions the band's AMV legacy through a cutting-edge AI lens, featuring AI production by Kaiber.ai."

In the video, scenes from Linkin Park's past can be seen, in AI form, from their Live In Texas DVD to music videos of "Somewhere I Belong", "Breaking The Habit", "Waiting For The End", and even Mike's solo song "Fine." At the very end, a scene is shown of the stars with the stars in the shape of the band's silhouette figures on the Minutes To Midnight album cover.

Upon release, Mike Shinoda noticed some negative comments in the band's Twitter replies about using AI. He tweeted, "How was LOST made? The anime scenes in the video are *original art* by @pplpleasr1 and @maciej_kuciara (not created by AI). AI was then trained on the original anime art, and applied to the Linkin Park footage, to make the band members look like the anime characters. In essence, the AI was used to visually tie the two forms of original content. This is, of course, a very simplified description and doesn’t take into account the VFX, editing, and painstaking customization of various scenes in the video. The Linkin Park clips are original footage of the band."

When asked why they did an anime video, Mike said, "The answer is that... in 2003, when Meteora came out, YouTube was relatively new and I guess this was old format of a TikTok video or trend. Back then, people would edit stuff together that they liked, and they'd put music underneath it, and they'd post that on YouTube. And we were noticing that they would post anime but it's to Linkin Park. So we kind of leaned into that, it was pretty cool and it was getting like Naruto and stuff like that. We kind of referenced it a little bit, we referenced Gundam in our "Somewhere I Belong" video. But then towards the end of the album, on our third single from the album, we did an anime video for "Breaking The Habit." And the AMVs didn't stop - they just kept going and going and going. And to this day if you search AMV, you'll get Linkin Park videos. Even if you don't type in "Linkin Park", you'll get Linkin Park videos. So for this new video for "Lost", the question was kind of "What's the 2023 version of that? What does that look like?" So we did basically an anime music video with a little AI. It's a Linkin Park AI anime video."

He added, "For those of you who don't know what that means, in this case, some people were confused, like "Oh did the AI make everything?" We worked with an actual anime animation team, who did original art and then we gave them original video footage and then they use the art and they used the video, and they trained the AI to turn our video into anime based on their original art. It was all based on original stuff, not on other peoples' stuff." He concluded by saying, "AI was almost like an effect, but a really strong effect, it's really visible in the whole video."

Upon release, the video accumulated millions of views quickly and went as high as #2 on YouTube Music for trending videos.

Alternate Reality Version

A second music video for 'Lost' was released on February 22, 2023. This "Alternate Reality Version" is another AI-generated video, this time trained off of the art of Meteora. It was made available exclusively on Meta platforms.

Video Credits

Directors: Maciej Kuciara, pplpleasr
Production Company: Shibuya
AI Production: Kaiber, Jacky Lu, Sagans
Editor and Compositing Lead: Anthony Scott Burns
Illustration: jun._.ka
Animation: Alasdair Willson, Andrew Hawryluk, Colby Beckett, Daniels Gulbis, Egor Mark, Kim Ho, Torell Vowles, Toros Kose

Versions

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

Studio

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Lost	Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition) Lost Demos	3:19	2002	February 10, 2023	Mixed by Manny Marroquin. Released as a pre-release song with the 20th Anniversary Edition announcement.
Lost	Papercuts - Singles Collection 2000-2023	3:16	2002	April 12, 2024	Mixed by Manny Marroquin. Segues into "Numb".
Lost (2002 Mix)	Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition)	3:23	2002	April 7, 2023	Mixed by Andy Wallace. Synths, samples, and guitars are louder. Shorter intro Longer scratch outro Deluxe CD exclusive bonus track.
Resolution	Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition) Lost Demos	4:37	2002	April 7, 2023	Vocals only during the verses.

Remix

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Lost (PLZ Tethered Version)	Lost (PLZ Tethered Version)	3:22	2023	April 21, 2023	Remix by Patrick Zappia. Mixed by Rafael Fadul. Mastered by Fili Filizzola.

Live

"Lost" was debuted at the band's private show in Burbank as a shortened piano version coming out of the Collapse Transition. Unlike many other songs in the set with a key change, "Lost" is transposed down from its original key: going from A minor to G minor.

Variations

Last Updated: September 29, 2024

Type	Description	First Played	Last Played
Alternative	Shortened (First Verse and Chorus Only)	September 05, 2024	September 28, 2024
Alternative	Piano Version	September 05, 2024	September 28, 2024

Personnel

Linkin Park

• Chester Bennington: Vocals
• Rob Bourdon: Drums
• Brad Delson: Guitars
• Joseph Hahn: Records, Sampling
• Phoenix: Bass
• Mike Shinoda: Emcee, Vocals, Sampling

Production

• Produced by Don Gilmore and Linkin Park
• Recording Engineer: John Ewing Jr.
• Assistant Engineer: Fox Phelps
• Mixer: Manny Marroquin
• Masterer: Brian "Big Bass" Gardner

Lyrics

Album Version

Just a scar somewhere down inside of me
Something I can not repair
Even though it will always be
I pretend it isn't there (This is how I feel)

I'm trapped in yesterday (Just a memory)
Where the pain is all I know (This is all I know)
And I'll never break away (Can't break free)
'Cause when I'm alone

I'm lost in these memories
Living behind my own illusion
Lost all my dignity
Living inside my own confusion

But I'm tired
I will always be afraid
Of the damage I've received
Broken promises they made
And how blindly I believed (This is all I know)

And I'll never break away (Can't break free)
'Cause when I'm alone

I'm lost in these memories
Living behind my own illusion
Lost all my dignity
Living inside my own confusion

I try to keep this pain inside
But I will never be alright
I try to keep this pain inside
But I will never be alright
I try to keep this pain inside (I'm lost)
But I will never be alright
I try to keep this pain inside (I'm lost)
But I will never be alright

I'm lost in these memories
Living behind my own illusion
Lost all my dignity
Living inside my own confusion

Resolution

(The beginning)
Taking you back to day one
The light was the blind and bright of two suns
(Come down)
Touch the ground we hang from
The rest can look back when yesterday comes
(Once again)
I return to the same mistake
And the pleasure that I hate and the pain it makes
(Turn around)
Take a look back to see
The darkness in a figure in the shape of me

It's not an illusion, not seeing double
My mistakes shouldn't have passed into today's new trouble
What I knew got lost in the shuffle
And I can’t go digging in yesterday’s rubble
So I’m left with a taste in my mouth
That I hate but I can’t seem to scrape it out
So when I say that I pray, it’ll go away
I’m reminded of this thing that you left in me

(The beginning)
Bringing the thought back again
You’re faced with rain dripping down off your chin
(Come down)
Hold the ground we claim to
When the rest can look back when yesterday’s through
(Once again)
Encore of the same mistake
And the pleasure that I hate and the pain it makes
(Turn around)
Take a look back to see
The darkness in a figure in the shape of me

It's not an illusion, not seeing double
Your mistakes shouldn't have passed into today's new trouble
What you knew got lost in the shuffle
And you can’t go digging in yesterday’s rubble
So while I’m left with a taste in my mouth
That I hate but I can’t seem to scrape it out
So when I say that I pray, it’ll go away
I’m reminded of this thing that you left in me

PLZ Tethered Version

Just a scar somewhere down inside of me
Something I can not repair
Even though it will always be
I pretend it isn't there (This is how I feel)
I'm trapped in yesterday (Just a memory)
Where the pain is all I know (This is all I know)

And I'll never break away (Can't break free)
'Cause when I'm alone

I'm lost

But I'm tired, I will always be afraid
Of the damage I've received
Broken promises they made
And how blindly I believed (This is all I know)

I will never break away (Can't break free)
'Cause when I'm alone

I'm lost in these memories
Living behind my own illusion
Lost all my dignity
Living inside my own confusion
I'm lost

I try to keep this pain inside, but I will never be alright
I try to keep this pain inside, but I will never be alright
(I'm lost) I try to keep this pain inside, but I will never be alright
(I'm lost) I try to keep this pain inside, but I will never be alright

I'm lost in these memories
Living behind my own illusion
Lost all my dignity
Living inside my own confusion

Gallery

• 

  Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition)

• 

  Lost Demos digital compilation

• 

  Lost Demos vinyl

• 

  Lost (PLZ Tethered Version)

• 

  Lyric sheet as shown on a Virgin 17 special.

• 

  Mike Shinoda, Emily Yang and Maciej Kuciara

• 

  Mike Shinoda, Emily Yang and Maciej Kuciara

External Links

• Lost (Official Music Video): YouTube
• Resolution (Official Audio): YouTube
• Lost [PLZ Tethered Version]: YouTube
• Linkin Park’s YouTube Premium Afterparty: YouTube