Hold It Together

"Hold It Together" is the 9th song off of Mike Shinoda's debut studio album, Post Traumatic.

Background

Mike enlisted Darren King, formerly the drummer of MUTEMATH who toured with Linkin Park on the 2012 Honda Civic Tour, to add drums to this song.

In April 2017, Mike mentioned Darren as someone he'd like to have in an "ultimate all-star" band in response to a Kerrang Magazine question on Twitter. He said, "Fun game. Maybe Darren King (drums), Flea (bass), Page Hamilton (guitar & bkgd cox), Frank Turner (vox)"

Mike told Rolling Stone about the birthday party line, "That's one of the lines that struck me in the moment. I don't think of myself as a songwriter that usually collects little things while they're happening and goes, 'Oh, that would make a great song.' I think because I was so immersed in writing the record, it happened quite a bit. Some of those are my favorite moments on the album."

In an interview with MDR, Mike was asked about "Hold It Together." The interviewer asked, "And there's another song called "Hold It Together" about people confronting you with your loss all the time. According to the lyrics, even at a six year old's birthday. Did that really happen?"

Mike replied, "Yeah! I mean that was just one example. That happened, but it was, you know... People would just bring up what had happened with Chester, they would bring it up at the weirdest times, at the wrong moment. I think they were just nervous, you know? They were just nervous so they couldn't help but ask about things. And the nice thing is that it's getting better. The more I talk about it to people and the more they hear the songs, the less we deal with that. As I was making the album, I knew - a lot of these things that I was writing about were moments in time, they were snapshots in a specific time, and that those moments would go away eventually. And I wanted to capture them when they were happening."

Talking about how the song was made, Mike said, "Go do yourself a favor and check out Darren's Instagram page because he puts a lot of his stuff up, his crazy, creative studio studio sessions. We didn't meet in person because he lives in not LA. He said, "Yeah I get a really good sound at my home in my home studio, so let me just send you tracks." And we did it that way and then I chopped those up and used them. I didn't just like, play the drums. I grabbed them and effected them and chose different sampled drum parts for the beat and verse and got to his part in the bridge. Darren's the reason the drum stuff on "Hold My Shit Together" off of the Post Traumatic record was so good. He's so great."

On a Twitch stream in September 2020, Mike played part of the demo of the song. He said, "I made this on my phone, probably on a flight. It's "Hold It Together", so that turned into "Hold It Together" off of the Post Traumatic album. Those were all of the sounds I made, that's just my phone playing. So you get pretty far on the phone, I think it's pretty awesome."

Music Video

Lost Video

While Mike was on tour for Post Traumatic in Europe in March 2019, fans noticed Mike filming a new music video before the show in Prague as well as at the end of the show in Luxembourg. In Prague, Mike was singing in front of a camera while his bandmates Matthias Harris and Dan Mayo and touring crew ran around and waved props in the air behind him. In Luxembourg at the end of the show after "Running From My Shadow", he had confetti launched on stage before walking backwards to the front of the stage and then off the stage, singing.

Setlist for Mike Shinoda's show in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg on March 23, 2019 showing the music video shoot note after "Running From My Shadow."

No video ended up ever being released for the song, the only one on the standard edition of the album without a music video.

In his April 9th, 2020 stream online, Mike said that the music video for "Hold It Together" was finished but the hard drive it was on was stolen at an Israeli airport on tour. The tour videographer Chady Awad (@goodguychady) was subjected to "extra screening" (Mike's politically correct way of saying it)... all of the videographer's stuff was torn up and sifted through and the hard drive was stolen during the process. He said it was hard to wrap his head around doing another video for the song unfortunately.

When asked in June 2020 about the concept for the lost video for the album, he said, "That's the Hold It Together video. Some of you were coming to the shows and some of you saw us filming the video and we got so much of it done. We had this whole scene... it was this whole idea partially inspired by the Missy Elliot videos from the early 2000s, it was Hype Williams, he did all of these weird, jittery things. I was doing it in reverse, some of them we were doing takes in fast forward. I had memorized the chorus in reverse and I did this whole thing where set up this shot, we had multiple cameras shot, handheld, it was on stage and I did this whole thing where I came to the stage. So at the end of the show, the show's over, crowd's there. Then I leave the stage and then from off stage they all get in position and we did this whole choreographed thing with like streamers and lights and I don't remember what else, and me walking backwards to the stage. Played in reverse it was SO cool because I was talking to the camera and then I was doing the words and I finished on the stage. Then the streamers went back into the things, like the poppers went in. It was great, we couldn't believe it, we had one take to get it right and we got it. And then at the end of the tour the hard drive was accidentally confiscated by the airport police. We believe. We believe that what happened is that it was in Chady's bag and then all of a sudden it wasn't, and it was his mistake to not back it up. So.... it sucks. And that was just one of the scenes, we had done a bunch of scenes with the crew. And you can't recreate those moments. It's not possible. So, that's a bummer." On the stream the next day, Mike was asked if he could sing the chorus backwards still, but he said that he unfortunately didn't remember how to do it.

Fan Video

On December 9, 2020, Linkin Park fan kattoda shared a new animated video she had created for "Hold It Together." The description of the video explained, "Hi! I’m kattoda and this is my very first animated music video. When I first heard ‘Hold It Together’ I immediately started imagining this story. But I never thought of actually making it into a video. Until I heard Mike saying that they lost all the footage for the Hold It Together music video. So I decided to spend my time in quarantine making this video, and I really hope you enjoy it"

Mike shared the video on his social media the same night, saying, "Wow, @kattoda_draws did a whole music video for HOLD IT TOGETHER. Watch!"

The video is an interplay between Mike and Anna Shinoda with Anna helping him overcome his struggles after Chester passed away.

Music Video

The official music video for "Hold It Together" premiered on June 16, 2023 at 10am PST on YouTube in celebration of the 5th anniversary of the Post Traumatic album. The video is a compilation of live performances and backstage footage shot during the Post Traumatic Tour in Moscow 2018.09.01, Stroudsburg 2018.10.15, Tel Aviv 2019.03.25, Paris 2019.03.09, Oberhausen 2019.03.06, Munich 2019.03.18, Hannover 2019.03.05, Prague 2019.03.19, Hong Kong 2018.08.07, Beijing 2018.08.12. Mike Shinoda wrote:

"It’s been 5 years since the release of #PostTraumatic. This album was one of the toughest + most cathartic + rewarding projects I’ve undertaken.

In celebration, I will be releasing a new REMASTERED version of the album on all streaming platforms (out tonight). We also made a video for “Hold It Together,” (out tomorrow) which was the only track from the album that didn’t get a visual.

I am so grateful to have been able to share these songs and perform them for you. Thank you, as always, for your support."

Video Credits

Directed and Edited by Mark Fiore
Produced by Amigo and Company
Shot by Chady Awad & Lorenzo Errico
Digital Effects by Aaron Hymes at GREATWORK© and Mark Fiore at Amigo and Company
Executive Producer: Devin Sarno / Warner Records

Versions

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

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Hold It Together	Post Traumatic	3:25	2017-2018	June 15, 2018
Hold It Together	Post Traumatic (Clean)	3:25	2017-2018	June 15, 2018	Censored. Worldwide release on October 31, 2018.
Hold It Together	Post Traumatic - Instrumentals	3:25	2017-2018		Official instrumental version.

Live

"Hold It Together" was debuted at the last show of the 2018 Asian tour in Singapore, where Mike missed the beginning of the synth solo during the bridge on account of him jumping around the stage during the second chorus. Somewhat sporadically, starting with the show in Moscow, Mike would mess around with the vocal samples as an intro to the song. At the Wien stop, Mike messed around with the samples at the end of the song rather than the beginning. At the Bremen show, Mike and touring drummer Dan Mayo improvised an extended outro to "Hold It Together", which they would continue expanding upon with later shows.

Variations

Last Updated: January 12, 2020

Type	Description	First Played	Last Played
Intro	Vocal Sample Intro	September 1, 2018	March 3, 2019
Outro	Vocal Sample Outro	September 7, 2018	September 7, 2018
Outro	Vocal Samples + Drums	March 3, 2019	September 8, 2019

Personnel

• Written, produced, and mixed by Mike Shinoda
• Vocals by Mike Shinoda
• Drums by Darren King
• Mastered by Michelle Mancini

Lyrics

Album Version

She said "Are you okay?"
And I'm staring into space
It's making her nervous cause one thing is certain
I don't have my head on straight
We're trying to get through each week
On two or three hours of sleep
I said to be patient
That we're going to make it
I have to admit that I'm struggling

They say take it slow
But the world keeps spinning
And that I don't control
And so there I go
Trying to act normal
So they won't know that

I'm just trying to hold my shit together
Together, darling
I'm just trying to hold my shit together
Together, darling

They say that they sympathize
I'm grateful they take the time
But bringing it up at this six year old birthday
It kinda fucks up my vibe
We end on an awkward note
I make the most awkward joke
Too dark to be funny
I shouldn't have come it'd be weird to go home
And I'm struggling

They say take it slow
But the world keeps spinning
And that I don't control
And so there I go
Trying to act normal
So they won't know

I'm just trying to hold my shit together
Together darling
I'm just trying to hold my shit together
Together darling

Oh I don't know what else to try
Pretend I'm in control
But I'm just trying to hold my shit together
Together darling

I'm just trying to hold my - together
Together darling
I'm just trying to hold my shit together
Together darling

Oh I don't know what else to try
Pretend I'm in control
But I'm just trying to hold my shit together
Together darling

Clean Version

She said "Are you okay?"
And I'm staring into space
It's making her nervous cause one thing is certain
I don't have my head on straight
We're trying to get through each week
On two or three hours of sleep
I said to be patient
That we're going to make it
I have to admit that I'm struggling

They say take it slow
But the world keeps spinning
And that I don't control
And so there I go
Trying to act normal
So they won't know that

I'm just trying to hold my ish together
Together, darling
I'm just trying to hold my ish together
Together, darling

They say that they sympathize
I'm grateful they take the time
But bringing it up at this six year old birthday
It kinda ***** up my vibe
We end on an awkward note
I make the most awkward joke
Too dark to be funny
I shouldn't have come it'd be weird to go home
And I'm struggling

They say take it slow
But the world keeps spinning
And that I don't control
And so there I go
Trying to act normal
So they won't know

I'm just trying to hold my ish together
Together darling
I'm just trying to hold my ish together
Together darling

Oh I don't know what else to try
Pretend I'm in control
But I'm just trying to hold my ish together
Together darling

I'm just trying to hold my - together
Together darling
I'm just trying to hold my ish together
Together darling

Oh I don't know what else to try
Pretend I'm in control
But I'm just trying to hold my ish together
Together darling

Gallery

• 

  YouTube background image

• 

  Music video shoot pre-show on March 19, 2019 in Prague, Czech Republic backstage for the lost video

• 

  Music video shoot post-show on March 23, 2019 in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg for the lost video

• 

  Music Video announcement

External Links

• Hold It Together (Official Audio): YouTube