Background
"Wish" is a song from industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails' Broken EP, released on September 22, 1992. It keeps with the general mood of the Broken EP and includes numerous angry and self-deprecating lyrical passages, but unlike other songs, also shows a desire for something more.[1]
Starting on June 3, 2004, the song was regularly played live by Linkin Park until the end of that year. A live recording from Tampa, Florida, was released on November 22, 2004 as part of the LP Underground 4.0 CD.
During a LPU Chat on August 2, 2011, Chester Bennington said, "Playing covers is something we don’t do very often, so we have to be picky about that kind of thing. But eight years ago when we didn’t have very many songs to play live, we would actually play songs like “Wish” or any of the other Deftones songs or whatever we could throw in our show because we only had like 36 minutes of music. So I don’t know how often we’ll do covers."[2] Mike Shinoda has said it’s hard for the band to agree on playing a cover version of a song because the guys don’t have consistency. They say they want to do a cover one day, and the next day they are making fun of it.[3]
According to Mike, "Wish" is "just a song we really like and feel strongly about and it's a lot of fun to play live because it's so energetic." He says the hardest part about putting the song together live was rebuilding all the sample sounds. "Actually, one of our techs used to work for Nine Inch Nails, and I played it for him, and I said "Dude you gotta hear this, I can't believe I made all these sounds, it sounds so similar" and he confirmed that they were, in his expert opinion, very similar. If I have his vote, then it's similar, because he's a die-hard Nine Inch Nails fan."[4]
Other bands who covered "Wish" includes Silverstein, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Beatsteaks, Behemoth, Dreadnaut, STEMM, Brand New, and Device.
The original song was featured as a playable track in "Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock", meaning it has stems available.
Versions
Note: Only the date of the very first release of each version is listed.
| Title | Album | Length | Recorded | Released | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wish (Live) | LP Underground 4.0 | 4:28 | August 18, 2004 | November 22, 2004 |
|
| Wish | Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition) | 4:21 | June 15, 2004 | April 7, 2023 |
|
| Wish | Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition) | 4:27 | August 30, 2004 | April 7, 2023 |
|
Live
"Wish" has been a big staple in Nine Inch Nails' setlists since it's premiere, but only had a short time in the limelight for Linkin Park sets. It first debuted at the end of the Meteora touring cycle, where it was performed as the second encore song starting on the International Tour. It retained this position throughout Projekt Revolution 2004, however it featured a shortened jam ending. The song was not played again after the tour ended. "Wish" was the second full and consistent cover the band performed, the first being Deftones' "My Own Summer (Shove It)" in 2002.
When asked on Twitch in October 2020 about performing covers live, Mike said, "We could never agree on covers. We had this thing, at one point, the idea was to pick... here's how things would devolve in Linkin Park world with something like covers. So the idea got floated out there, "We should do more covers" and everyone was like, "Well...." And the thing was, we could never agree on what to cover, so why don't we each suggest a cover. And we'll start by learning those songs. So each of us suggest a song, and blah blah blah. And inevitably, somebody would... it would basically be - Dave would suggest something and I would suggest something and it would be serious meaning, "We think this is a great song, let's cover it." For example, Dave at one time suggested "Drive" by The Cars. And I was like, "Oh that's interesting." But I joked with him, I gave him a hard time for it because it's just such a slow cover and I was like, "Wouldn't that be weird in our set? It's a good song, but I don't know, let's talk about it." And that conversation would be a straightforward one, like, "Yeah", "No", "I don't know", whatever... "Let's just talk about it." Brad and Rob would never suggest anything. And then Chester would suggest something, but this happened more than once where he'd suggest a thing and Joe wouldn't like his thing. He didn't want to do it so Joe would then suggest something insane that would should absolutely not cover and that nobody would want to, but he was doing it to sabotage the other cover ideas. And then they'd be like, "You're just doing that to sabotage the ideas" and he'd be like, "No, I just really like this song." Like Joe would be like, "I want to cover blahblahblah by The Wiggles." And he'd be like, "I legit want to do that." And Chester would say, "Dude be serious, everyone is being serious", but Joe would be like, "I am being serious, that's what I want to do." He's like, "You said we'd get to all pick one and then we'd do all six so this is my song, this is my choice." And we're like, "Can't you choose something else?" Then he'd say, "No, can't YOU choose something else?" So it would devolve from there. It would never happen because that's basically the conversation that would go on and it would flush itself down the toilet."[5]
Variations
Last Updated: September 8, 2016
| Type | Description | First Played | Last Played |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outro | Shortened Jam Ending | July 23, 2004 | September 11, 2004 |
Personnel
Linkin Park
- Chester Bennington
- Rob Bourdon
- Brad Delson
- Joseph Hahn
- Phoenix
- Mike Shinoda
Production
- Recorded live at Projekt Revolution 2004
- Mixed by Don Gilmore
- Recorded and engineered by John Van Eaton
- Assisted by Jason 'Ruster' Ruggles
- Production manager: Jim Digby
- Written by Trent Reznor
- Mastered by Brian "Big Bass" Gardner at Bernie Grundman Mastering
Lyrics
This is the first day of my last days
I built it up now i take it apart climbed up real high now fall down real far
No need for me to stay the last thing left
I just threw it away
I put my faith in god and my trust in you
Now there's nothing more fucked up I could do
Wish there was something real
Wish there was something true
Wish there was something real in this world full of you
I'm the one without a soul
I'm the one with this big fucking hole
No new tale to tell twenty-six years on my way to hell
Your big time hard line bad luck fist fuck
Don't think you're having all the fun
You know me
I hate everyone
Wish there was something real
Wish there was something true
Wish there was something real in this world full of you
Ahh...
Yeah...
Yeah!
Wish there was something real
Wish there was something true
Wish there was something real in this world full of you
Wish there was something real
Wish there was something true
Wish there was something real in this world full of you
This world full of you [x3]
Woah!
This world full of you
External Links
References
- ↑ Wish (song) - NinWiki
- ↑ Transcript: LPU Chat with Chester | LP Association Forums, August 02, 2011
- ↑ Mike Shinoda LPU Chat Summary 02/04/2015 + Screenshots - Mike Shinoda Clan, February 04, 2015
- ↑ LinkinPark.ru - Всё о Linkin Park по-русски! | linkinparkru.com, May 12, 2008
- ↑ Twitch: Mike Shinoda - 10.29 Choose Your Own Adventure, October 29, 2020