Tinfoil

Template:Song "Tinfoil" (stylized as "TINFOIL") is the eleventh track off of Linkin Park's fifth studio album, Living Things. It serves as an intro to the album closer, "Powerless."

Background

"Tinfoil", initially, was included as a part of "Powerless", but eventually was separated into its own track.

"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 versions 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."

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

"Tinfoil" is one of only two Living Things songs to not receive an official remix, with "In My Remains" being the other.

Versions

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

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Tinfoil	Living Things	1:12	2011-2012	June 20, 2012	Intro to "Powerless".
Tinfoil / Powerless (Instrumental)	Living Things (Acapellas and Instrumentals)	5:03	2012	September 11, 2012	Official instrumental version.

Live

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Faint	Live At Admiralspalast Berlin, Germany		June 05, 2012	March 29, 2013	With "Tinfoil". DVD only. Living Things+ bonus DVD.

Live

"Tinfoil" has never been performed in full, but a shorter version of the song in C# minor was used to open either the show or encore in conjunction with "Faint" throughout the Living Things cycle. It debuted at the Music For Relief/Power The World performance as the opener for the show, and was played at every headlining show of the European Tour. Starting with Honda Civic Tour, "Tinfoil" opened the show with "Faint" in Set A and opened the encore with "Faint" in Set B. It was never played in any other position. In 2013, it was dropped from the festival version of Set B, since there was no encore being played in that set.

Mike played guitar, almost always backstage, on "Tinfoil." A few times, he came on stage during the song, like at the Adelaide, Australia 2013 Soundwave show.

Throughout the short three show run in January of 2014, "Faint" always had a brief sample of "Tinfoil" at the start since the opening sample of "Faint" always cross-faded with it near the end of the Living Things cycle, and the band just didn't get rid of the brief cross-fade sample on the song for those shows.

"Tinfoil" was not played again after the touring cycle for The Hunting Party began in May 2014.

Variations

Last Updated: December 25, 2015

Type	Description	First Played	Last Played
Alternative	Shortened	May 18, 2012	August 19, 2013