Powerless

Template:Single "Powerless" (stylized as "POWERLESS") is the twelfth track on the album Living Things. "Tinfoil" and "Powerless" were originally the same song, but they were later split into two separate tracks. Although the song wasn't released as an official single, it received a digital single release in Japan on October 31, 2012, and a music video which served as a trailer of the film "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter."

On the booklet and back cover of Living Things, dots were used to mark the number of each track, but "Powerless" has 13 dots instead of 12.

Background

"Tinfoil" / "Powerless" were initially started during the A Thousand Suns sessions, like "I'll Be Gone", but weren't finished until the band started writing for Living Things. The original version of the song was very different than the version released on Living Things, as revealed by Mike Shinoda, when he said "Took the longest to write. It was a really old demo, TINFOIL is the intro of it, and it turned into this epic 6 minute long thing, but it was kind of boring. It was too long, so months later we chopped it down to size. It probably took 9 months or even a year before the song was actually done. The last day of recording, we were still working on that song. Rob came in and recorded a new idea, and it made it way better."

"Powerless" "was trimmed from a seven-minute epic, given a more compact arrangement and, on the last day of recording, filled out with live drums."

Remix

"Powerless" was officially remixed once, with it being done by Enferno. The remix was released through the Living Things Remix Subscription and on the band's second remix album, Recharged, with the latter including a transition ending into Tom Swoon's remix of "Burn It Down".

Tracklist

Digital Single

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1	Powerless	Linkin Park	3:44

Music Video

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Trailer

"Powerless" was choosen to play over the end credits of the 20th Century Fox film "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter."

Before Linkin Park's performance at Telekom Street Gigs, which took place in Berlin in June 5, 2012, the band shoot a music video for "Powerless" with director Timur Bekmambetov. This video consisted of the band performing the song along with footage from the film and portions of the Berlin show. Colorist was Andrey Mesnyankin for Colorkitchen.

Due to Mike recording the guitars on the studio version of the song and Brad not knowing how to play it, very few shots of Brad were shown to keep the illusion of it being a live performance.

The video served as a trailer for the film and was released on June 19, 2012.

Power The World Video

A new video for "Powerless" was released on November 27, 2012 as part of Music For Relief's Power The World campaign.

The video was only two minutes short and consisted of reused footage filmed in Berlin with footage from the campaign.

Versions

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

Studio

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Powerless	Living Things Powerless	3:46	2011-2012	June 20, 2012
Tinfoil / Powerless (Instrumental)	Living Things (Acapellas and Instrumentals)	5:03	2012	September 11, 2012	Official instrumental version.
Powerless (Acapella)	Living Things (Acapellas and Instrumentals)	3:27	2012	September 11, 2012	Official acapella version. There's a glitch at 0:56.

Remix

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Powerless (Enferno Remix)	Living Things Remixed	6:18	2012	December 20, 2012	Remix by Eric Jao.
Powerless - DJ Enferno Remix	Living Things Remixes	4:00	2012		Remix by Eric Jao. Shortened. Cut beginning. Different transitions.
Powerless (Enferno Remix)	Recharged	6:07	2012	October 29, 2013	Remix by Eric Jao. The ending was cut to make the remix transit into "Burn It Down (Tom Swoon Remix)".

Live

While "Powerless" has never been performed in front of an audience, it was "performed" at the band's stop in Berlin for Telekom Street Gigs for footage that was later used in both the Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and a Power The World promotional videos. It is unknown if the band truly played the song live or if they played alongside a backing track. During this performance, though, shots of Brad were kept at a minimum because Mike recorded the guitar parts for "Powerless", and Brad never learned how to play them. This is currently the only performance the band has done of the song. Mike Shinoda said, “I don’t know why it wasn’t played live. I don’t have a good answer for you. Other songs got picked. It was funny, we basically figured out how to play it… ish, kind of figured out how to play it, in order to do the video for it. Super weird movie.”

Lyrics

Album Version

You hid your skeletons when I had shown you mine
You woke the devil that I thought you'd left behind
I saw the evidence, the crimson soaking through
Ten thousand promises
Ten thousand ways to lose
 
And you held it all
But you were careless to let it fall
You held it all
And I was by your side
Powerless
 
I watched you fall apart and chased you to the end
I'm left with emptiness that words can not defend
You'll never know what I became because of you
Ten thousand promises
Ten thousand ways to lose
 
And you held it all
But you were careless to let it fall
You held it all
And I was by your side
Powerless
 
Oh, woah, oh [x4]
 
And you held it all
But you were careless to let it fall
You held it all
And I was by your side
POWERLESS
Oh, woah, oh [x2]
POWERLESS
Oh, woah, oh [x2]
POWERLESS

Remix Version

And you held it all
But you were careless to let it fall
You held it all
And I was by your side
POWERLESS
Oh, woah, oh
Oh, woah, oh
Oh, woah, oh
Oh, woah, oh

POWERLESS
POWERLESS
POWERLESS
POWERLESS
POWERLESS

And you held it all
But you were careless to let it fall
You held it all
And I was by your side

POWERLESS
Oh, woah, oh
POWERLESS
Oh, woah, oh
POWERLESS
Oh, woah, oh
POWERLESS
Oh, woah, oh

POWERLESS
POWERLESS
POWERLESS
POWERLESS

In Other Media

• "Powerless" is featured in the 2012 film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter as well as in its trailer.

References

• https://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/powerless-single/id570585623
• http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/483272/linkin-park-score-abe-lincoln-end-credits
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWh-uw1fx90
• https://vimeo.com/44195947