Mike Solo

Background

Mike's Solo Medley consists of parts of multiple songs. It mashes up "Skin To Bone", "Wretches And Kings", "Remember The Name" by Fort Minor, and "In My Remains". It began with Mike performing a drum sample intro before the synths of "Skin To Bone" started with the Mario Savio speech in "Wretches and Kings" being played over it, with Joe distorting and glitching it up. A mashup of both songs made the instrumental as Mike rapped a "hybrid" verse of "Wretches and Kings", taking pieces of the first and second verse of the song. After a short solo from Joe, a sped up iteration of "Remember The Name" would follow through, with Mike rapping the chorus of the song and then performing a random verse on top of it (sometimes by request). The keys from "In My Remains" sound during the second part of the "Remember The Name" portion.

Live

Mike's Solo debuted right at the start of The Hunting Party touring cycle, in the middle of the set after "Waiting For The End". The first few performances featured Mike rapping his verse from the Nick Catchdubs remix of "Skin To Bone" from Recharged. It also featured a transition outro that led into "Numb", and later on the 2014 Version of "Dirt Off Your Shoulder/Lying From You". Mike began changing it up after the first shows of the Summer European Tour, and began periodically rapping the first verse of "When They Come For Me" starting in Moscow, Russia instead of the "Skin To Bone" remix during the "Remember The Name" portion of the solo. A few days later, Mike changed it again during Rock am Ring 2014, where he rapped the first verse of "Hands Held High" over it, making it the first time since the end of the Minutes To Midnight touring cycle that the song had appeared in a setlist. This version only happened once more, at the end of that tour at Greenfield 2014. On the Carnivores Tour, Mike began rapping a hybrid verse of "Remember The Name" during that part of the song, featuring a mashup of his first two verses of the song. This became the regular verse that he would perform, replacing the "Skin To Bone" remix, which only appeared a hand full of times after he introduced the hybrid verse. While never performed to the public, Mike rapped the second verse of "When They Come For Me" during his solo at the private production rehearsal in West Palm Beach, Florida. The song featured one last new verse, that only appeared once: Mike rapped a verse of "High Voltage" over his medley in Bremen, Germany at the end of the Fall European Tour, making it the first time the song appeared in a Linkin Park setlist since it was featured during the extended intro of "Points Of Authority" in 2009, at the show in Stuttgart, Germany. The song remained in the same spot of the setlist until mid-2015, when a new version of "Remember The Name" and "Welcome" replaced it. It was last performed at the Amnesia Rockfest in June 2015.

Variations

Last Updated: September 16, 2016

Type	Description	First Played	Last Played
Intro	Hard Start	December 12, 2014	May 17, 2015
Outro	Ext. Transition Outro	May 24, 2014	June 20, 2015
Alternative	w/ "Skin To Bone" Nick Catchdubs Remix Verse	May 24, 2014	January 15, 2015
Alternative	w/ "When They Come For Me" Verse 1	June 2, 2014	September 9, 2014
Alternative	w/ "Hands Held High" Verse 1	June 7, 2012	June 12, 2012
Alternative	w/ "When They Come For Me" Verse 2	August 6, 2014	August 6, 2014
Alternative	w/ "Remember The Name" Hybrid Verse	August 13, 2014	June 20, 2015
Alternative	w/ "High Voltage" Verse 1	November 20, 2014	November 20, 2014

Lyrics

Live Version - "Skin To Bone" Remix

Mario Savio: "There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, Makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part, And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, Upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, And you've got to make it stop." To save face / how low can you go? Talk a lot of game but yet you don't know Static on the way / make us all say "whoa" The people up top push the people down low Get down And I'm running it like that The front of the attack is exactly where I'm at Somewhere in between The kick and the hi hat The pen and the contract The pitch and the contact So get with the combat / I'm letting 'em know There ain't shit you can say to make me back down, no So / push the button let the whole thing blow Spinning everything outta control Everybody go This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, Fifteen percent concentrated power of will, Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain, And a hundred percent reason to remember the name! I'm on some taxidermy rap shit, talk about some raw game You're nothing but a trophy mounted on my door frame I spit that propane, light you with a slow flame And watch you burn until there's nothin' but a gold chain Yeah you'll be some crispy critters You'll wish you with us You'll wish what we did, you did it You can't, you kiddin? I don't have a shoe you'll fit in You're as soft as a motherfuckin' newborn kitten I'm an animal, tearing flesh into bone Randomly rippin' everything gone Unless they forget what then let it be known I'll bury every competitor, every predator Anyone ever forget it, you'll regret it forever Never been nothing short of a legend, you peasants will learn I'll stay standin' in the front like I'm forgetting my turn For these matchstick rappers, this is meeting adjourned I ain't even gotta match them, I'm just letting them burn! This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, Fifteen percent concentrated power of will, Five percent pleasure and fifty percent pain Live Version - "When They Come For Me" Verse 1 Mario Savio: "There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, Makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part, And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, Upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, And you've got to make it stop." To save face / how low can you go? Talk a lot of game but yet you don't know Static on the way / make us all say "whoa" The people up top push the people down low Get down And I'm running it like that The front of the attack is exactly where I'm at Somewhere in between The kick and the hi hat The pen and the contract The pitch and the contact So get with the combat / I'm letting 'em know There ain't shit you can say to make me back down, no So / push the button let the whole thing blow Spinning everything outta control Everybody go This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, Fifteen percent concentrated power of will, Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain, And a hundred percent reason to remember the name! I am not / a pattern to be followed The pill that I'm on is a tough one to swallow I'm not a criminal / not a role model Not a born leader I'm a tough act to follow I am not / the fortune and the fame Or the same person telling you to forfeit the game I came in the ring like a dog on a chain And found out the underbelly's sicker than it seems And it seems ugly / but it can get worse 'Cause even a blueprint is a gift and a curse 'Cause once you got a theory of how the thing works Everybody wants the next thing to be just like the first And I'm not a robot I'm not a monkey I will not dance even if the beat's funky Opposite of lazy / far from a punk Ya'll ought to stop talking start trying to catch up This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, Fifteen percent concentrated power of will, Five percent pleasure and fifty percent pain Live Version - "Hands Held High" Verse 1 Mario Savio: "There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, Makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part, And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, Upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, And you've got to make it stop." To save face / how low can you go? Talk a lot of game but yet you don't know Static on the way / make us all say "whoa" The people up top push the people down low Get down And I'm running it like that The front of the attack is exactly where I'm at Somewhere in between The kick and the hi hat The pen and the contract The pitch and the contact So get with the combat / I'm letting 'em know There ain't shit you can say to make me back down, no So / push the button let the whole thing blow Spinning everything outta control Everybody go This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, Fifteen percent concentrated power of will, Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain, And a hundred percent reason to remember the name! Turn my mic up louder, I got to say something Lightweights step it aside when we come in Feel it in your chest / The syllables get pumping People on the street they panic and start running Words on loose leaf sheet complete coming I jump in my mind and summon the rhyme I'm dumping Hearing the blind I promise to let the sun in Sick of the dark ways we march to the drumming Jump when they tell us that they wanna see jumping Fuck that / I wanna see some fists pumping Risk something / Take back what's yours Say something that you know they might attack you for Cause I'm sick of being treated like I have before Like it's stupid standing for what I'm standing for Like this war's really just a different brand of war Like it doesn't cater to rich and abandon poor Live Version - "Remember The Name" Hybrid Verse Mario Savio: "There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, Makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part, And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, Upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, And you've got to make it stop." To save face / how low can you go? Talk a lot of game but yet you don't know Static on the way / make us all say "whoa" The people up top push the people down low Get down And I'm running it like that The front of the attack is exactly where I'm at Somewhere in between The kick and the hi hat The pen and the contract The pitch and the contact So get with the combat / I'm letting 'em know There ain't shit you can say to make me back down, no So / push the button let the whole thing blow Spinning everything outta control Everybody go This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, Fifteen percent concentrated power of will, Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain, And a hundred percent reason to remember the name! Mike! - He doesn't need his name up in lights, He just wants to be heard whether it's the beat or the mic, He feels so unlike everybody else, alone, In spite of the fact that some people still think that they know him, But fuck 'em, he knows the code, It's not about the salary, It's all about reality and makin' some noise, Makin' the story, makin' sure his clique stays up, That means when he puts it down y'all are pickin' it up Forget Mike, nobody really knows how or why he works so hard, It seems like he's never got time, Because he writes every note and he writes every line, And I've seen him at work when that light goes on in his mind, It's like a design is written in his head every time, Before he even touches a key or speaks in a rhyme, And those motherfuckers he runs with, they're still in their prime Ridiculous, without even trying, how does he do it?! This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, Fifteen percent concentrated power of will, Five percent pleasure and fifty percent pain Live Version - "High Voltage" Mario Savio: "There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, Makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part, And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, Upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, And you've got to make it stop." To save face / how low can you go? Talk a lot of game but yet you don't know Static on the way / make us all say "whoa" The people up top push the people down low Get down And I'm running it like that The front of the attack is exactly where I'm at Somewhere in between The kick and the hi hat The pen and the contract The pitch and the contact So get with the combat / I'm letting 'em know There ain't shit you can say to make me back down, no So / push the button let the whole thing blow Spinning everything outta control Everybody go This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, Fifteen percent concentrated power of will, Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain, And a hundred percent reason to remember the name! I've been digging into crates ever since I was living in space Before the ratrace, before monkeys had human traits I mastered numerology and Big Bang theology Performed lobotomies with telekinetic psychology Invented the mic so I could start blessing it Chin-checking kids to make my point like an impressionist Many men have tried to shake us But I twist mic cords to double-helixes And show them what I'm made of I buckle knees like leg-braces Cast a spell of instrumentalness on all of you emcees who hate us So you can try on, leave you without a shoulder to cry on From now to infinity let icons be by-gones I fire-bomb, ghostly notes haunt this I tried threats but moved onto a promise I stomp shit with or without an accomplice And run the gauntlet with whoever that wants this This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, Fifteen percent concentrated power of will, Five percent pleasure and fifty percent pain References