Template:Single "Given Up" is the second track off of Linkin Park's third studio album, Minutes To Midnight. The song was released as the fourth single from the album on March 3, 2008. The cover photo was shot by Edward Colver and shows Chester Bennington recording vocals in the studio.[1] It was previously used in the Minutes To Midnight booklet.[2]
Background
The April 2007 issue of a French magazine published a track by track of Minutes To Midnight on which Rob said, "This song had several working titles, including "What the f ** k is wrong with me", "Given Up" and "Wake". Wake is the first word you'll hear in the song. Chester didn't like the name "Wake" and was dropped."[3]
The booklet for the limited edition version of Minutes To Midnight contained information about each track on the album. About "Given Up", it said "Many of the demos in the beginning of the album were quieter, more introverted songs. This song, originally entitled “21 Stitches,” was the first heavy song that the guys were sure would make the final cut. In it, the band found a new way to combine their new sound with the loud guitars that had been missing. To add a unique twist on the punk/industrial theme of the guitar, Brad added the sounds on the intro of this song: multiple tracks of claps – and keys jingling."
The song's working title, "21 Stitches", is believed to be a reference to an incident that took place in April 2006 when Chester Bennington went to Arizona for a Bucket Of Weenies show at the Club Tattoo Anniversary Party, got drunk, lost the key to his dad's house and tried to break in through the back window. He spent a couple of days in the hospital and got stitches under his right arm. He wore the blood-stained shirt from the incident during the show when he guested with Julien-K on "Technical Difficulties", but changed to a red shirt before the Bucket Of Weenies set. Chester's description of the story was, "You know, a funny thing is, on the way out here to the show... I got here maybe five days ago, four days ago, I don't remember. I went out to a club and got really shitfaced and lost the key to my dad's house and tried to break in through the back window and actually went through it. And I got the stitches right here. [...] I got home about 5:30am in the morning from the hospital."[4]
Brad Delson further elaborated on his role in the creation of the song in an interview with Kerrang!, where he stated "We had a really bad song called 'Fire in the City' - the chorus actually had the words 'fire in the city' on it! Mike was the only person who liked it. Rather than just scrap the song, we mined it for any good parts. I took the bassline and the drums and built weird sounds around it, which eventually became this song. Chester's screaming: 'What the [expletive] is wrong with me? Put me out of my [expletive] misery!' so without explaining exactly what the song is about, it's pretty clear he's not happy."[5][6]
Regarding the swearing in the song, Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda, during a Loveline Radio Broadcast in 2008, talked about how it came naturally, but were afraid that the rest of the band would reject the idea of dropping the f-bomb in the song. However, the moment they heard the swearing during the song, the band knew it had to stay in.[7]
On how the song came about, Chester said, "Given Up. That song went through some different vocal ideas, I mean, most of the songs kinda went through like mass amounts of changes, and I think Given Up probably had like 20 different versions of it." Rob adds, "Started off with Brad clapping his hands and shaking his keys. It was called 21 Stitches, I remember." Chester continued, "Yeah, right, and it kinda started more, a little more punk with the vibe, and then we kinda like mellowed that out and gave it a little more melody in the verses and stuff. I was going for something like really heavy right off the bat, but the chorus came right away. And the bridge, you know, that was kinda, like, we got stuck at that point and Mike was like, you know, 'just kinda like say something that you would actually say,' you know, like, meaning like out of frustration or in that moment in a movie, you know, that the lyrics can relate to, like, 'what would you do?' And so I just started to going off, pretty much. And the 18 seconds scream was kinda like a joke at first but it ended up staying which is like, I always end up doing something during one of the records I wish I didn't. It's good, but, like, I wish I didn't do it cause I've had to perform it every night, you know? Crawling was my first experience with that cause the chorus is like one long note and then, you know, with this one 18 second scream which is not easy to do every night."[8]
The song details Chester's alcohol issues. He said, "I wasn't leaving my house. I would shack up in my closet in the dark and shake all day. I would wake up and have a pint of Jack Daniel's to calm down, then I’d pop a bunch of pills and go back in my closet and fucking freak out. I was a mess. I was falling through windows, having seizures and going to hospital the whole time. It was fucking ridiculous. I was a total wreck." Linkin Park staged an intervention, eventually leading to his rehab. Chester wrote "Given Up" right after he got back from rehab.[9]
In June 2020, Mike told the story of recording the bridge scream by Chester - "Ah man, it was just a thing. He was just on it. He was just pissed off or had all this crazy energy. He was doing the scream for that bridge part and he didn't know the structure of the song that well yet, so he did the scream... he did a couple of takes and we were like, "oh that's too short, that doesn't fit in the spot it needs to fit in, it just needs to be longer." And he did it again, and it was still kind of short, so I said "oh it needs to be a lot longer than that." So he just did THAT - he kept going and he knew he was just doing it over the chorus, then he finished it and I was just SCREAMING myself, like "that was the most epic thing I've ever heard!" He was just laughing... sweating and laughing. That was for sure "no shirt on, freaking out in the vocal booth day." I was like, "I'm just going to work around it, I'm going to work the song around the scream.""[10]
Tracklist
CD Single
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Given Up | Linkin Park | 3:11 |
| 2 | Valentine's Day (Live From Frankfurt Germany, JAN 20 '08) | Linkin Park | 3:23 |
Digital Single
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Given Up | Linkin Park | 3:11 |
| 2 | Valentine's Day (Live From Frankfurt Germany, JAN 20 '08) | Linkin Park | 3:23 |
| 3 | In Between (Live From London UK, JAN 29 '08) | Linkin Park | 3:25 |
Premium CD Single
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Given Up | Linkin Park | 3:09 |
| 2 | Given Up (Video) | Linkin Park | 3:12 |
Vinyl Single
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Given Up | Linkin Park | 3:09 |
Music Video
During a Linkin Park show at the Manchester Evening News Arena on January 27, 2008, Mike Shinoda revealed Mark Fiore was filming live footage from the show for a "Given Up" music video. Footage of the two following shows at London's O2 Arena on January 28 and January 29 were also used. Nick Lambrou, who had previously worked on live videos for Story Of The Year, The Used, Deftones, and Saosin, edited the video.[11]
The music video premiered exclusively on the LP Network Widget on Monday, March 3 at 4:00 p.m. PST.[12]
Artist Name: Linkin Park
Song Name: Given Up
Directors: Mark Fiore, Linkin Park
Video Commissioner: Devin Sarno
Record Label: Warner Bros. Records
Versions
Note: Only the date of the very first release of each version is listed.
Studio
| Title | Album | Length | Recorded | Released | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Given Up | Minutes To Midnight
Given Up Kerrang! The Album '08 Big Shiny Tunes 13 |
3:09 | 2006-2007 | May 14, 2007 | |
| Given Up | Minutes To Midnight (Clean)
Given Up (Radio CD) |
3:09 | 2006-2007 | May 14, 2007 |
|
| Given Up | Minutes To Midnight Instrumentals
Warner Brothers Instrumentals - March 2008 |
3:12 | 2006-2007 |
|
Live
| Title | Album | Length | Recorded | Released | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Given Up (Third Encore Session) | Minutes To Midnight (MVI Disc)
Minutes To Midnight (Tour Edition) |
3:08 | March, 2007 | August 17, 2007 |
|
| Given Up (Live At AOL Sessions) | Minutes To Midnight (BestBuy Edition) | 3:10 | March 14, 2007 | May 14, 2007 |
|
| Given Up | LP Underground 7.0 | 3:09 | August 10, 2007 | December 5, 2007 |
|
| Given Up (Live) | Live From SoHo (iTunes Exclusive EP) | 3:28 | February 21, 2008 | March 4, 2008 | |
| Given Up (Live) | Champs Sports USB Wristband | 3:09 | August 22, 2007 | July 16, 2008 |
|
| Given Up | Road To Revolution: Live At Milton Keynes | 3:15 | June 29, 2008 | November 21, 2008 |
|
| Given Up | Road To Revolution: Live At Milton Keynes (Clean) | 3:15 | June 29, 2008 | November 21, 2008 |
|
| Given Up | Live In Red Square | 3:40 | June 23, 2011 | July 21, 2011 |
|
| Given Up (Live From Taipei, 2009) | Minutes To Midnight - Live Around The World | 3:18 | August 13, 2009 | June 12, 2012 | |
| Given Up | Live At Admiralspalast Berlin, Germany | June 05, 2012 | March 29, 2013 |
|
Live
"Given Up" has been a prominent component of Linkin Park's setlists since it's debut. For much of its live history, the song has been performed early on in the set, likely because of how vocally demanding it can be for Chester.
Throughout the song's live history, Chester has done the full scream during the bridge on seven occasions live: three times during the pre-tour rehearsals in March of 2007 - the Third Encore Performance, AOL Music Sessions, and the Stripped Music Performance, once during the Minutes To Midnight TV promo shows in Europe at London's Popworld, as well as at three full live shows - Selma, Texas 2007 during Projekt Revolution, and twice in the same month in February 2008 - Columbus, Ohio and Montreal, Canada. He attempted to do the full scream on the second night in Melbourne, Victoria in October 2007 but fell short. This was the show that Chester broke his wrist at on the beginning of "Papercut" when he was jumping off the top of the stage, so he was likely in a huge adrenaline rush at the time. At most shows, Chester would just split the scream in half.
Both this song and "No More Sorrow" were performed under their working titles during band rehearsals in March 2007, "Given Up" being performed as "21 Stitches". For the first few tours of the Minutes To Midnight touring cycle, the song was placed late in the early-set, typically around the fifth of seventh position in the set. When the band introduced rotating setlists on Projekt Revolution 2007, the song opened with "Wake" in Set A, was performed early in the set after "Somewhere I Belong", and mid-set before "Don't Stay" in Set C. The band introduced another three new sets on the Minutes To Midnight European Tour in 2008, where the song, with a new extended outro, was featured early on in Set R, as the opener in Set S, and mid-set before "Valentine's Day" in Set T. Near the end of the Minutes To Midnight North American Tour, "Given Up" was dropped at a few shows due to Chester falling sick. When the band introduced yet another batch of setlists on the second Minutes To Midnight European Tour of 2008, "Wake", which usually always preceded "Given Up", was replaced with a new version of the song: "Wake 2.0". In Set X, the song preceded "From The Inside" mid-set, and was performed early-set in Set Y and Set Z. In 2009, "Wake" was dropped from the set, and instead, a combination of "Session" and "Given Up" opened every show, barring the show in Shanghai, China, where "Given Up" and "Hands Held High" were dropped due to the country's strict censorship rules.
On the A Thousand Suns touring cycle, "Given Up" began to gain a stable position in the early-set. The song was featured as the fifth song in almost every setlist for 2010, with an extra note being performed after the extended outro that segued into the song that followed. The song was dropped at one show on the A Thousand Suns European Tour in 2010: the band's performance at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Madrid, Spain. "Given Up" retained its early-set position for the entirety of the touring cycle.
"Given Up" did not see much movement on the Living Things touring cycle either. On the European Tour in 2012, the song was featured second after "A Place For My Head" in the festival set, and sixth in the headlining set, after "Runaway". On the three sets used throughout the touring cycle, "Given Up" was featured fourth in Set A after "Papercut", second after "A Place For My Head" in Set B, and third after "Faint" in Set C. In 2013, to extend the length of Festival Set B, "Papercut" was moved up to the second position in that set, "Given Up" being pushed up one position.
On The Hunting Party touring cycle, "Given Up" saw even less movement. The song was performed third in the set at every show of 2014, and on the three shows of The Hunting Party North American Tour in 2015. The song saw minimal movement on the band's summer tour, it being performed second after "Papercut" in the shortened set and headlining set, and third after "Rebellion" in the full festival set. The song had to be censored on The Hunting Party Chinese Tour due to the country's strict censorship laws. On The Hunting Party European Tour, the song was moved down to be before "Rebellion" rather than after it.
In 2017, the song was not featured on tour at all by Linkin Park for the first time since it was debuted a decade earlier.
Variations
Last Updated: December 7, 2015
| Type | Description | First Played | Last Played |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intro | Extra clapping during the intro | July 19, 2009 | January 18, 2015 |
| Outro | Ext. Outro | January 16, 2008 | November 7, 2015 |
| Outro | Ext. Outro w/ Extra Note | October 7, 2010 | November 24, 2014 |
Live Guests
Last Updated: December 26, 2015
- Benjamin Chandler (replacing Brad Delson)
- Warren Willis (replacing Joe Hahn)
Promotion
Personnel
- Chester Bennington
- Mike Shinoda
- Brad Delson
- Dave "Phoenix" Farrell
- Joseph Hahn
- Rob Bourdon
Track 1
- Produced by Rick Rubin and Mike Shinoda
- Mixed by Neal Avron
- Mastered by Dave Collins
- Worldwide Representation: Rob McDermott for Mad Mac Entertainment
- Management Team: Ryan DeMarti and Trish Evangelista
- From The Warner Bros. / Machine Shop Recordings Album Minutes To Midnight
- Art Direction & Design: Frank Maddocks
- Band Photographs: Edward Colver
- Additional Photographs: Ethan Mates
Track 2
- Recorded and Mixed by Ken "Pooch" Van Druten
- Mastered by Brian "Big Bass" Gardner
Track 3
- Recorded and Mixed by Ken "Pooch" Van Druten
- Mastered by Brian "Big Bass" Gardner
Given Up Video
- Directed by Mark Fiore & Linkin Park
Lyrics
Wake in a sweat again
Another day's been laid to waste
In my disgrace
Stuck in my head again
Feels like I'll never leave this place
There's no escape
I'm my own worst enemy
I've given up
I'm sick of feeling
Is there nothing you can say
Take this all away
I'm suffocating
Tell me what the fuck is wrong with me
I don't know what to take
Thought I was focused but I'm scared
I'm not prepared
I hyperventilate
Looking for help somehow somewhere
And no one cares
I'm my own worst enemy
I've given up
I'm sick of feeling
Is there nothing you can say
Take this all away
I'm suffocating
Tell me what the fuck is wrong with me
God!
Put me out of my misery
Put me out of my misery
Put me out of my
Put me out of my fucking misery
I've given up
I'm sick of feeling
Is there nothing you can say
Take this all away
I'm suffocating
Tell me what the fuck is wrong with me
Gallery
-
Parental Advisory label
-
Non-PA
-
Vinyl Side A
-
Vinyl Side B
-
DVD artwork
-
Kerrang! The Album '08
-
Big Shiny Tunes 13
-
Premium Single poster
-
Chester at the Club Tattoo 2006 Party
In Other Media
- "Given Up" was used as the opening theme of the TV show Pan y Circo (from Uruguay). Various other Linkin Park songs were used during the episodes throughout its existence.
- "Given Up" is featured in the trailer for the 2009 film Crank: High Voltage, in which Chester Bennington did a cameo.
- "Given Up" is featured in the 2012 film Grave Encounters 2.
- "Given Up" is featured in the 2013 film Red 2.
Cover Versions
Canadian metalcore band Sleep When You're Dead released a cover of "Given Up" for free download through their YouTube channel on November 19, 2013.[14]
Detroit metalcore band Victim released a cover of "Given Up" for free download on their BandCamp page on March 13, 2015.[15]
External Links
- Given Up (Music Video): LPTV | WBR | WMG | MTV | VK
- Given Up (Clarkston 2007) - Simply New | Simply New Vimeo | Marc Scarpa| NowWhat
- Given Up (Milton Keynes 2008) - LPTV | WBR
References
- ↑ Frank Maddocks on Instagram: “Repost from @lplive @TopRankRepost #TopRankRepost Happy 10 years to the music video for #GivenUp! Art direction and design:@frankmaddocks…”, March 03, 2018
- ↑ LINKIN PARK | MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT — Frank Maddocks Design
- ↑ LPRussia.com ~ Первый о Linkin Park ~ wap.LPRussia.com, April 22, 2007
- ↑ Club Tattoo 10 year anniversary Party 2006 B.O.W. with Sean Dowdell and Chester Bennington - YouTube, July 23, 2010
- ↑ Kerrang!, April 2007
- ↑ The Linkin Park Times - Interviews & Articles, April 4, 2007
- ↑ Loveline Radio Broadcast, April 2008
- ↑ Linkin Park - Chester and Rob Vodpod 1 - YouTube, December 16, 2008
- ↑ A light goes out: Chester Bennington, 1976-2017 | Louder, July 20, 2018
- ↑ LPLive: Mike Q&A Summary 6/12/2020, June 12, 2020
- ↑ N I C K L A M B R O U
- ↑ Linkin Park: 'Given Up' Video To Premiere Today - Blabbermouth.net, March 03, 2008
- ↑ Linkin Park - Given Up (2008) | IMVDb
- ↑ Sleep When You're Dead - Given Up[Linkin Park Cover - YouTube], November 19, 2013
- ↑ Given Up (Linkin Park Cover) | Victim, March 13, 2015
